The Philip Davies Fellowship

This award of £6,000 is offered to help support individuals wishing to conduct research on US politics.

The Philip Davies Fellowship supports a researcher to conduct bi-partisan research on politics in the United States of America, predominantly using the collections of the British Library but also those of other UK institutions (such as the Rothermere American Institute at the University of Oxford, home of the bulk of the Philip and Rosamund Davies US Elections Campaigns Archive). In honour of Professor Davies’ work building American Studies groups in the UK, the Fellowship focuses on supporting work that considers the significance of political dialogue, be that in local, national or international contexts and can include literary, film, art, or other areas of study with a focus on US politics in any time period.

The Fellowship is open to any serious researchers, academic and non-academic, with a research interest in US politics, especially those individuals interested in conducting work that broadens their experience and develops new research horizons and networks for the individual.  The individual will contribute some sort of output to be agreed with the Eccles Centre, perhaps in the form of a podcast, web essay or finding list, to explain what was learned and the value of the collections they interacted with.

Fellowship applications are encouraged from North American, European and British researchers (based outside the M25) and the Fellowship will support a research stay in London of three to six months. The Fellowship will provide an amount of £6,000 for the awardee with funds from the award being used to cover travel, accommodation and general living costs when in the UK.

Awardees are strongly encouraged to reach out to other scholars in the United Kingdom and to expand their network of international colleagues.  While the overall purpose of the Fellowship is to develop the awardee’s intellectual work, another purpose is to enrich, by association, the institution from which the awardees come through their connections and experience with others in, and tangential to, their fields of study.

Awardees are encouraged to time their research trip to coincide with the British Library and Rothermere American Institute Congress to Campus UK programmes, in March and November of each year. Through this, awardees will be given the opportunity to meet visiting Former Members of Congress, observe and interact with UK students learning about the American political process and take part in events associated with the programme. The Eccles Centre will cover any extra costs incurred through this work.

In recognition of the ongoing uncertainties around travel caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, awardees may take up their Fellowship at any time between October 2020 and September 2023.

How to apply
Applications should be made on this form and emailed to eccles-centre@bl.uk using the award title as the subject line.

The deadline for receipt of applications is 4 September 2020, 17.00 London time.The outcome will be announced in October.