Sharing future leadership – Research Professional News

Research Professional | Pivot-RP
       
The UKRI fellow who refused the standard individualistic approach
In December, UK Research and Innovation announced that its Future Leaders Fellowships would open for at least two more rounds in 2024 and 2025, with deadlines each summer.
The full brief for round nine of the scheme is yet to be published, but the overall remit will remain unchanged from previous round: to provide funding for ambitious, multi- or interdisciplinary projects and develop the “next wave of world-class research and innovation leaders in academia and business”.
A total of £100 million in funding will be available in
each of the next two rounds for projects of up to four years’ duration, with the option to extend for a further three.
At the same time as UKRI confirmed the 2024 and 2025 competitions, it also announced the 75 winners of the eighth round. Among them was Sofya Shahab, based at the Institute of Development Studies, whose project on the power of heritage in times of conflict won £1.35m.
She explains here how her bid played with conventional notions of academic leadership.
What is the fellowship about?
It looks at the potential of heritage to foster an embodied or a felt sense of peace in conflict-affected contexts. We are working with young people in Iraq and Syria, and Iraqi and Syrian refugees in Jordan, to look at this embodied sense of peace and how that helps cultivate resilience.
There has been a lot of research on how heritage is used in conflict by instrumental actors. Daesh’s destruction of heritage in Iraq and Syria comes to mind.
Hopefully, my project will engage a shift of thinking to appreciation of heritage’s positive aspects.
Can you explain the embodiment aspect?
The destruction of heritage, as with some other forms of violence, is not directed at people’s bodies, but is still felt internally. A lot of people who saw the images of the destruction of Palmyra talk about heartbreak—a physical sensation. When we think about peace, why are we not thinking about it as something that needs to be felt internally, and how might that change our approach to peace building?
How did you find the application process?
It was a complex application. I was fortunate in that I won internal funding before embarking on the proposal to engage with different stakeholders in the region. I held workshops in Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon to discuss and formulate the project.
So there was this element of co-construction and co-creation behind the bid. It was great to have those partnerships established from the start and set the groundwork of how we want to continue in undertaking the project in a collaborative way. 
Do you think this contributed to the success of the application?
It was integral. A big part of my project is looking at what decolonial research looks like in practice. It is hard when the funding comes from western donors and through big institutions to shift how that functions. But there are little
ways in which we can try and decentre ourselves. 
It can feel weird in a future leaders fellowship, which is centred on the individual, to try and shift the focus. But I think that doing so contributed to my success. I want to address different approaches to leadership and research and how we change the system more broadly.
And the reviewers were open to that?
The scheme necessarily involves thinking about leadership and, for me, that meant interrogating leadership by deconstructing traditional hierarchies. 
It is leadership from below—my role is to enable people to do what they want to do. I was a bit anxious in the interview that I overshared my limitations as a leader and that I don’t feel comfortable stepping into the spotlight. But the panel was very open to my project being co-constructed and co-owned.
What else did you pay attention to?
The fellowship involves answering the questions of ‘Why you?’ and ‘Why this project now?’ You have to show what it will do in terms of your career and development.
To address that, I had a trajectory mapped out through the project with the trainings that would support me. I named and budgeted for those trainings. I focused on the leadership from below aspect and how, especially in academia, that can challenge traditional career trajectories.
What advice do you have for potential applicants to this scheme?
If you are working with partners, try to involve them in the conceptual design stage. Often, it is not feasible to bring in people early on, but if you can, I would recommend that.
Second, as well as what you are doing, focus on how you are going to do it and what is different about that. And finally, at interview, show how the project can help you develop your skills and abilities. You don’t have to be everything right now. It is OK to recognise where things could be strengthened. 
This is an extract from an article in Research Professional’s Funding Insight service. To subscribe contact sales@researchresearch.com
Research Professional News is an editorially independent part of Clarivate. 2023 © Copyright – All Rights Reserved

source

About The Author

admin

See author's posts