Fellowships
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
Funds must be used to cover costs connected to research use of our 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.
Click here to arrange an informal discussion with a relevant member of our team
MERL Fellowship Expression of Interest form
Fellowship 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. 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.
Current Fellowship
Dr Mara Oliva is a historian and digital humanist whose work sits at the intersection of history and digital technologies. A specialist in twentieth-century U.S. history, her research explores the U.S. presidency, soft power, climate-change diplomacy, environmental policy, and urban heritage—especially in New York City. She serves as the University of Reading’s Director of the Interdisciplinary Research Centre in Digital Humanities, where she promotes the development of digital-humanities scholarship, lead a vibrant community of practice, and provide mentoring and expert guidance for digital research projects.
Her project investigates the transatlantic currents that shaped modern environmental thought by using the Council for the Preservation of Rural England (CPRE) as a detailed case study. It explores how ideas from the U.S. conservation and preservation movements—such as those championed by figures like John Muir and embodied in the creation of national parks—helped influence the establishment and early activities of CPRE in the early to mid-twentieth century.
Drawing on historical documents, policy developments, and intellectual exchanges between British and American environmentalists, the study examines how U.S. environmental ideologies informed British approaches to landscape protection, rural preservation, and environmental policy. It also highlights the ways in which British advocates adapted and transformed these transatlantic influences, contributing their own perspectives to a dynamic, reciprocal dialogue.
By situating CPRE within this broader international context, the research demonstrates that its development was not an isolated British phenomenon but part of a wider network of cross-border environmental exchange. The project ultimately sheds new light on the global evolution of environmental activism and policy, enriching the historiography of environmentalism and deepening understanding of the international roots of modern conservation thought.
Past Fellowships
- 2019-20 Rebecca Ford – Evacuee experiences
- 2019-20 Samuel Little – Material Reuse in Agricultural Buildings
- 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
- 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