Abstract
On 1 February, Lord Bragg moved that the House of Lords “takes note of the contribution of the arts to the economy and to society”. Here, I analyse the arguments in that debate to see whether it follows from anything said that HM Government (through UKRI) should allocate more public funds to arts and humanities research. I argue, much to the chagrin of the British Academy and Royal Academy, that this inference is not possible. Second, I present a little of my work at The Royal Institute of Philosophy where I analysed a 7-year-old £300,000 grant programme that made awards to >40 UK philosophy departments. I argue that the reason philosophers (my chosen case study) are so strapped for cash these days is because (1) they don’t seize the opportunities presented to them and (2) too much of the research they propose fails to meet a basic cost-benefit-analysis and cannot therefore justifiably be paid for with public funds. I conclude with a positive proposal for how A&H researchers can make more competitive funding applications. I refer to the Research on Research Institute, whose scholars mostly have humanities backgrounds, and the recent £3 million call for proposals made through UKRI by the new £10 million DSIT Metascience Unit. I argue that STS, metascience and medical humanities present exciting new ways for A&H to contribute to solving real-world problems.
Presenters
B.V.E. HydeResearcher, School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science, University of Leeds, United Kingdom
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
2024 Special Focus—Traveling Concepts: The Transfer and Translation of Ideas in the Humanities
KEYWORDS
A&H, Funding, Priority-Setting, STS, Metascience
