Global Innovation Fellowships: The German Council for Foreign Relations
The British Academy has been funded by the Department of Business, Innovation, Science & Trade (DBIST) to support the Global Innovation Fellowships.
The objective of the Global Innovation Fellowships is to provide opportunities to UK-based early- and mid-career researchers from across the humanities and social sciences to develop their skills, networks and careers in the creative and cultural, public, private and policy sectors to address challenges that require innovative approaches and solutions. Through the Global Innovation Fellowships, researchers in the SHAPE community will be supported to create new and deeper links beyond academia, so enabling knowledge mobilisation and translation, as well as individual skills development.
Aims
This is the fourth call for this programme, offering opportunities for Global Innovation Fellowship award holders to embed themselves and be based in the office of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) in Berlin. Awards from the previous round are available on the British Academy website’s past awards page.
DGAP is committed to fostering impactful foreign and security policy on a German and European level that promotes democracy, peace, and the rule of law. DGAP’s experts provide decision-makers in politics, business, and civil society with strategic advice based on their foreign policy research and train young professionals in international leadership programmes. DGAP conducts action-oriented, practical research, developing concrete solutions for pressing foreign policy concerns and contributing expertise to strategically address the challenges of an increasingly unstable world.
The Academy and DGAP invite applications for Fellowships in any of the following areas:
- Security, Defence, and Resilience in a New Threat Environment
- Indo-European Relations
- Technology and AI
- Strategy-Making in Europe
Successful applicants would be expected to produce policy-relevant analysis for German decision-makers. They do not need an understanding of German politics, but they should be able to offer new approaches to typical foreign policy dilemmas in their chosen field and be ready to engage with policymakers and further stakeholders in Germany.
Eligibility Requirements
Applicants might have expertise from a range of disciplinary, conceptual and methodological perspectives, including analytical, policy and practical perspectives.
Eligible applicants must be ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom with a current long-term appointment that will continue for at least as long as the period of the award. You must be an early-career or mid-career researcher based at an institution in the UK (e.g. a Higher Education Institution [HEI] or Independent Research Organisation [IRO]), from disciplines within the humanities and social sciences that is listed as an approving-organisation in the British Academy’s grant management system, Flexi-Grant®. This institution will be issued the Terms and Conditions of the award, if successful.
This is an opportunity for award holders to form new collaborations and draw on the insights this brings to inform, influence and develop their future development. We seek open-mindedness, a willingness to explore new perspectives and to experiment with innovative approaches. You will have an appetite for working across academia, policy and practice, and will demonstrate a commitment to being genuinely challenge driven and dedicated to integrating the perspectives, needs and priorities of the partner organisation.
All applicants should strongly consider the potential for engagement between academic and non-academic environments and the value this would bring to their career and the value they can bring to the work and purpose of the DGAP. Applicants must also meet the requirements set out below in the ‘Working at and with the DGAP’ section.
Applicants may not hold more than one British Academy award of a comparable nature at any one time.
Postgraduate students are not eligible to apply for grant support from the Academy, and Applicants are asked to confirm in the personal details section(s) that they are not currently working towards a PhD, nor awaiting the outcome of a viva voce examination, nor awaiting the acceptance of any corrections required by the examiners.
For more details about the programme and the eligibility requirements, please see the Scheme Notes.
Value and duration
Global Innovation Fellowships will have a maximum award value of £150,000 on an 80 per cent Full Economic Costing (FEC) basis. The award is intended to be made on a full-time basis, for a duration of 12 months.
The cost of relocation, visas and any associated costs for the applicant and their dependants are eligible under this programme.
Application process
Applications must be submitted online using the British Academy’s Grant Management System (GMS), Flexi-Grant®
The deadline for submissions and UK institutional approval is 14 October 2026, 17:00 (BST).
Webinar
On 15 September at 10:00 (BST), the British Academy will host a webinar with DGAP to introduce the call and provide an opportunity for attendees to ask questions. Register your attendance for the webinar.
Contact details
For questions about the call, please contact: humanityclimatenature@thebritishacademy.ac.uk
Apply for the Global Innovation Fellowships: The German Council for Foreign Relations