Teaching Learning & Research
Teaching, Learning and Research - AHRC Subject Associations Meeting
Friday 11 June 2010
Main points from the meeting
- 4 themes/priorities emerged: Care for the Future, Translating Cultures, Digital Transformations in Arts and Humanities and Science in Culture. It is not clear yet whether these themes will become programmes, but they will very likely become foci of clusters of activity
- The new themes/priorities emphasise internationalisation and policy aspects
- Budget cuts are expected, but AHRC hopes that they will be absorbed by administrative savings. Even if the AHRC budget is not cut, sustaining current budget would mean a loss due to inflation. We will have to wait till the spending review for clearer information.
- There was a strong emphasis on ‘hard interdisciplinarity’ (transformative work which goes beyond a straightforward drawing on other disciplines while remaining within one’s own).
- AHRC will be increasingly open to ‘mixed methods’ (e.g. humanities & social sciences, or arts & science) and to the co-funding of proposals across councils
- AHRC intends to draw more strongly on subject associations to communicate value of research.
- AHRC is establishing ‘follow-on funds’ (similarly to the ESRC) to enable researches to foster benefits of funded projects. AHRC prefers terms such as ‘benefit’ and ‘value’ to the term ‘impact’.
- A strong emphasis was laid on public policy impact (including funding for fellowships/secondments and seminars), in public engagement, and in encouraging collaborations between HEIs and different kinds of organisations.
AAH Chair of Teaching, Learning and Research, Dr. Patricia Allmer, can be contacted at P.Allmer@mmu.ac.uk; she would appreciate your comments and questions on the issues arising from these points.