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Birkbeck’s Wellcome Trust Institutional Funding for Research Culture (IFRC)

Birkbeck was founded in 1823 on the principle of access to education for working people. As the only research-intensive institution in the UK that has specialised in widening participation from its outset, we attract doctoral and post-doctoral students from groups traditionally disadvantaged in higher education. But barriers, including historic exclusion from knowledge production, lack of access to debt-free finance, and the sense of not feeling at home in academic spaces often mean that for these groups, the journey from PhD is interrupted or impossible. Hence the leaking pipeline model.  

Our proposal reimagines Birkbeck’s mission of widening access and participation for the twenty first century, focusing on knowledge production and institutional wellbeing through the retention and recruitment of a diverse and inclusive staff base.

We have identified three key aims:  

  1. developing a diverse academic workforce from the bottom up  
  2. recruitment and retention of a diverse academic workforce from ECR to professor 
  3. coproduction of knowledge in health research.

Within each of these we have a range of activities, including seed funding to support networks and participatory research, career development grants, and ring-fenced funding for specific knowledge exchange projects. We will work in collaboration with historically excluded groups and communities, including those disadvantaged by ethnicity, status as first gen, or returning to work following a career break, to co-produce research on health, life and wellbeing. These activities will help us test the  hypothesis that we can develop and sustain an inclusive, ethical and creative research environment that supports the progression of colleagues across their academic careers from PGR to professor. 

Our IFRC activities build on the successes of our Wellcome/Birkbeck ISSF programmes, and provide tailored support for first gen, Black, people of colour and other groups recognised as being historically disadvantaged or under-represented in HE (including returning from a career break) to further their research and careers in health and health-related subjects. All activities must fall within the  scientific or medical humanities remit of the Wellcome Trust. 

For more information and to find out how to apply for a grant, please visit Birkbeck’s Wellcome Trust Institutional Funding for Research Culture (IFRC) Sharepoint site (Birkbeck staff only).

For enquiries from outside of Birkbeck, please .