British Academy Rising Star Engagement Awards

Congratulations to Central’s Knowledge Exchange Fellow Dr Naomi Paxton who has received a British Academy Rising Star Engagement Award.

The British Academy announced 23 new Rising Star Engagement awards for some of the most promising and talented academics in the UK, in a drive to boost engagement and collaboration within the humanities and social sciences. 

Funded by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), British Academy Rising Star Engagement Awards (BARSEAs) are held for a 12-month period and provide funding of up to £15,000. They are designed to encourage wider engagement with the humanities and social sciences within and beyond academia through events, training, and mentoring activities.

As part of this year’s programme, the award holders will be organising engagement activities in a wide range of different areas.

Dr Naomi Paxton was recognised for her work Different Stages: Exploring public engagement for Drama and Theatre early career academics. The project will bring together Drama and Theatre early career researchers to discuss the role of public engagement and knowledge exchange within the discipline, to identify key areas in which advocacy for research in Drama and Theatre might be used to influence policy, and to learn skills so they can take the lead in creating opportunities for interdisciplinary and creative collaboration both within their institutions and as independent researchers.

Of the award, Dr Paxton said:

“I am delighted that the British Academy is supporting this project, and can’t wait to get started!”

To be eligible for a BARSEA, candidates must be early career scholars within ten years of the award of their doctorate, and ordinarily live in the United Kingdom.

Candidates must also be able to demonstrate their academic credentials to be leaders in research through suitable marks of esteem awarded prior to the submission of the application. Applicants are required to have a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA) champion their candidacy.

Other projects include:

• Universals’ Locales: The International and Global History and Sociology of Modern Theoretical and Mathematical Sciences – Dr Michael Barany, University of Edinburgh
• Narrative science in techno-environments: integrating history of science with environmental history and humanities – Dr Dominic Berry, London School of Economics and Political Science  
• Everyday Fascisms – Dr Harriet Boyd-Bennett, University of Nottingham
• Medieval Mediterranean Exchanges: New Approaches and Collaborations – Dr Michael Carr, University of Edinburgh
• Interdisciplinary ECRs Network on the Intersectionality of Women Entrepreneurs – Dr Hannah Dean, University of St Andrews
• Beyond ‘Sectarianism’? Towards an Alternative Framework for Understanding Sunni-Shia Relations in the UK – Dr Emanuelle Degli Esposti, University of Cambridge
• Slavic Studies Goes Public: Creating an ECR network for knowledge exchange and capacity building in the public humanities – Dr Victoria Donovan, University of St Andrews
• The Sociology of Suicide Research Network: Developing a New Research Agenda  – Dr Rhiannon Evans, Cardiff University
• Microscopic Records: The New Interdisciplinarity of Early Modern Studies, c. 1400 – 1800  – Dr Stefan Hanss, University of Manchester
• Methods and pathways for engagement with infrastructure services – Dr Ralitsa Hiteva, University of Sussex
• Dynamics and Legacies of Revolution in the MENA – Dr Neil Ketchley, King’s College London
• Remembering the dead: artistic-academic collaborations – Dr Laura King, University of Leeds
• New Vistas for Human Social Cognition: A Fresh Look Through the Lens of Individual Differences – Dr Gary Lewis, Royal Holloway, University of London
• #resistance: Exploring digital protest by marginalised groups – Dr Laura Teresa Loyola Hernandez, University of Leeds
• Mapping the Quartet: The Living Legacy of a Female Philosophical School – Dr Clare Mac Cumhaill, Durham University
• Enhancing Shared Reflexive Knowledge of Translation as Cross-cultural Communication – Dr Eliana Maestri, University of Exeter
• Epistemological Pluralism  – Dr James Nguyen, School of Advanced Study, University of London
• Parliaments Under Fire – Dr Ben Noble, University College London
• The Aesthetics of Drone Warfare – Dr Beryl Pong, University of Sheffield
• Sounding (Out) 19th-Century Italy – Dr Francesca Vella, University of Cambridge
• Borders and Crossings: The Arts and Society – Dr Erica Wickerson, University of Cambridge
• Novel Impressions: Literature and the Hand-Press in the Eighteenth Century – Dr Helen Williams, Northumbria University.