Fellowships
MERL Fellowship Scheme
The new MERL Fellowship Scheme is now open. We invite expressions of interest for up to £5,000 to cover costs associated with collections-based research. We welcome interest from academic researchers at different career stages, working within a wide range of disciplines and methodologies. We are especially keen to hear from those whose work connects to our wider programmes.
Current areas of interest include (but are not limited to): communities and participation; landscapes and environments; sustainability and nature; intangible cultural heritage; diversity and global connectivity; health and wellbeing. Future calls may be subject specific.
Funds must be used to cover costs connected to research use of MERL holdings. For example, expenditure might include: travel; accommodation and subsistence; digitisation; web-based or creative content; dissemination activities; workshops or meetings; other reasonable costs.
Before completing a full expression of interest please contact us for an informal discussion of your ideas and to confirm eligibility. Researchers must hold a PhD or be able to demonstrate equivalent experience. They must have an affiliation with a Higher Education Institution or Independent Research Organisation. We welcome international interest and are happy to explore the use of Fellowship funds to support virtual access.
We are happy to receive submissions on a rolling basis, with proposals assessed twice annually (usually in March and September). Our process is geared towards supporting the best projects at the most impactful time.
MERL Fellowship Expression of Interest form
MERL Fellowship Scheme Funding
Past Fellowships have been delivered with the generous support of funds donated in memory of Gwyn E. Jones, as well as by the P. H. Ditchfield bequest, funds from which support local history research. Several targeted Fellowships have been supported by specific stakeholder organisations including the Open Spaces Society and the Poultry Club of Great Britain. We continue to seek support for programmes of research that extend the use of our holdings in new and innovative directions.
Past MERL Fellowship Recipients and Projects
2021-22 Jenny Chamarette – Q is for Garden: Queer ecologies
2020-21 Katrina Navickas – Changing landscapes
2019-20 Rebecca Ford – Evacuee experiences
2019-20 Samuel Little – Material Reuse in Agricultural Buildings
2019-20 Jeremy Burchardt – Children’s toponyms
2018-19 James Bowen – Poultry Mania
2017-18 Suzanne Joinson – Sheepcombe: A Reckoning, a nature and landscape memoir
2016-17 Antonia Bruce – First Foods artist residency
2014-15 Karen Sayer – Rat control on British farms
2013-14 Chris Green – Historical dictionary of agricultural hand tools
2012-13 Rachel Worth – Rural working-class dress, 1850-1900
2011-12 Keith Grieves – Forestry and remembrance after the First World War
2011-12 Joseph Hodge – Agricultural extension and tropical agriculture
2010-11 John Martin – Extreme weather and agriculture from 1947 to 1976
2009-10 Hilary Crowe – Farm Management Survey, 1930s-70s
2008-09 Clare Griffiths – Images of farmers and farming in war and peace
2007-08 David Viner – Reassessing farm wagon collections
2006-07 Richard Tranter – Interwar agricultural depression and the Berkshire Downs
2005-06 Andrew Godley – Development of the supermarket chicken industry
2005-06 Richard Bonser – The changing shape of the chicken
2005-06 Nicola Verdon – Women in twentieth century agriculture