| British Academy | |
|---|---|
| Formation | 1902 (society) 1902 (Royal Charter) |
| Type | national academy |
| Legal status | charity |
| Headquarters | 10-11 Carlton House Terrace, London, United Kingdom |
| Membership | 900 |
| President | Sir Adam Roberts |
| Website | www.britac.ac.uk |
The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national body for the humanities and the social sciences. Its purpose is to inspire, recognise and support excellence in the humanities and social sciences, throughout the UK and internationally, and to champion their role and value.
It receives an annual grant from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS). In 2010-11 it had a gross income of £31,050,878, including £26,447,813 from BIS. £25,380,379 was distributed during the year in research grants, awards and charitable activities. [1]
The British Academy was established in 1902 and received its Royal Charter in the same year. It is now a fellowship of more than 900 leading scholars spanning all disciplines across the humanities and social sciences. The Academy is a self-governing and independent registered charity, based at 10-11 Carlton House Terrace in London.
It is not to be confused with the British Academy of Film and Television Arts or the Royal Academy.
The Academy states its fundamental purposes under four headings:
The creation of a “British Academy for the Promotion of Historical, Philosophical and Philological Studies” was first proposed in 1899 in order that Britain could be represented at meetings of European and American academies. The organisation, which has since become simply “the British Academy”, was initiated as an unincorporated society on 17 December 1901, and received its Royal Charter from King Edward VII on 8 August 1902.[2]
Since then, many of Britain’s most distinguished scholars in the humanities and social sciences have been involved in the life of the Academy, including John Maynard Keynes, Isaiah Berlin, C. S. Lewis and Henry Moore.
Until 1927-8 the Academy had no premises. Then it moved to some rooms in No. 6 Burlington Gardens. In 1968 it moved the short distance to Burlington House. It subsequently moved to headquarters near Regent’s Park. Then in 1998 the Academy moved to its present headquarters in Carlton House Terrace. One of London’s finest Georgian treasures overlooking St James’s Park, the Terrace was designed by John Nash and built in the 1820s and 1830s. Number 10 was formerly the London residence of the Ridley family and number 11 was from 1856 to 1875 the home of Prime Minister William Gladstone.
In March 2010, the Academy embarked on an ambitious £2.75m project to renovate and restore the public rooms in No. 11, following the departure of former tenant the Foreign Press Association, and link the two buildings together. The work was completed in January 2011 and the new spaces include a new 150-seat Wolfson Auditorium are available for public hire.
The history, problems and achievements of the Academy have been recorded in works by two of its Secretaries. Sir Frederic Kenyon’s slim but useful volume of 37 pages covers the years up to 1951;[3] Sir Mortimer Wheeler’s characteristically incisive, amusing and informative volume covers the years 1949 to 1968. [4]
Election as a Fellow of the British Academy recognises high scholarly distinction in the humanities or social sciences, evidenced by published work. Fellows may use the letters FBA after their names. Fellows are elected into one of the following disciplinary sections[5]:
Humanities
Social Sciences
The British Academy channels substantial public funding into support for individuals and organisations pursuing humanities and social sciences research and scholarship in the UK and overseas. These funding schemes are designed to aid scholars at different stages of their academic career and include Postdoctoral Fellowships, Wolfson Research Professorships, Leverhulme Senior Research Fellowships and British Academy Research Projects.
In addition to its main public funds supported by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Academy also draws on private funds arising from gifts, legacies, contributions made by Fellows and grants from research foundations to support a further range of research activities. In 2009/10 more than 1,000 research awards worth over £17 million were made to individuals based in over 100 different universities across the UK, with a further £6.8m spent on international research.
In order to promote the interests of UK research and learning around the world, the Academy works to create frameworks to support international networking and collaboration and develop the role of humanities and social sciences research in tackling global challenges. It draws on expertise from a wide range of sources from within the fellowship and on specialist advice from its seven Area Panels for Africa, China, the Middle East, Europe, South Asia, and Latin America/Caribbean.
The Academy also funds and coordinates a network of overseas institutes which provide local expertise, logistical support and often a working base for UK scholars. These include research institutes in Amman, Ankara, Athens, Jerusalem, Nairobi, Rome and Tehran, as well as UK-based specialist learned societies which run strategic research programmes in other parts of the world including Africa, Latin America and South and South East Asia.
The Centre was established in October 2009 with matching funding provided by the Economic and Social Research Council and gained further funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council from March 2010. It oversees a programme of activity engaging the expertise within the humanities and social sciences to shed light on policy issues.
It produces substantive reports making recommendations on public policy and practice. These include research on families and public policy, published in February 2010, and on the history of the family, published in October 2010. The Centre also produces topical research syntheses, summarising existing literature. These include work on electoral systems published in March 2010 and on constituency boundaries, published in September 2010.
The Centre’s activities also include organising policy events and discussions, liaison with learned societies and Higher Education Institutions and promotional work on the impact and profile of humanities and social science research.
The British Academy organises a wide-ranging annual programme of more than 50 public lectures, panel discussions, conferences and seminars showcasing new research and debating topical issues. This includes a number of long-established lecture series, such as the Shakespeare Lecture, first given in 1911. Most events are free and most take place at the Academy’s headquarters in Carlton House Terrace.
The British Academy awards a total of 12 Prizes and Medals, most of them awarded annually. These include the Wiley Prize for Psychology, founded in 2009; the Peter Townsend Policy Press Prize, created in 2011; and the British Academy President’s Medal, created in 2010 and awarded to up to five recipients each year who have demonstrated “signal service to the cause of the humanities and social sciences”.
Lectures and Conferences Papers
Monographs
Research series
Reports