Conor Snowden, Strategic Research Executive (International Development), highlights a new series of British Council educational partnership grants and the resources available to support your application.
For nearly 90 years, the British Council, the UKs international agency for cultural relations, has developed and funded educational partnerships between the UK and other countries as a key part of cultural exchange. This has taken many forms from visiting lectureships behind the iron curtain, Ph.D. scholarships, the UK Foreign Office Chevening scholarships scheme and more recently running Erasmus+ and Turing programmes and being a key partner in the Newton Fund. They work with over 120 countries helping bring students to the UK, giving overseas experiences to UK students but also support education partnerships including supporting research.
Going Global Partnership grants
With the recent announcement that the Newton Fund is coming to an end, the British Council has recently launched a new series of educational partnership grants, Going Global Partnerships, named after their flagship biannual international education conference. It is likely that these bilateral grants will replace the kind of research and educational partnership funding that had been available with low and middle income countries (LMICs) under the Newton Fund.
They recently announced that over the next few months schemes may be launched to support partnerships with Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Philippines, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine and Vietnam. Some are already live on the system on the British Council Funding Calls and Opportunities webpage:
Funding calls and opportunities | British Council
Further schemes will be announced on this webpage.
Support and resources
The University of Edinburgh has significant experience of applying for British Council funding, with a number of successful researchers, and I used to help manage the Newton Fund at the British Council. Edinburgh Research Office has specific resources to support applying for equitable partnerships with low and middle income countries and I am always happy to discuss funding opportunities for partnerships with LMICs.
International development research resources (Edinburgh Research Office website).
With funding for research for international development very limited this year, before new UKRI schemes are likely to be launched in April 2023, these British Council schemes may offer a great opportunity to build new, and develop existing partnerships, in preparation for future larger opportunities.
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