Bursaries for Research Trips in Gender Studies within English Studies for 2024

Purpose and Types of Bursaries

In 2022, ESSE introduced a new category of bursary to support Gender Studies within English Studies, which is continued in 2023, and offers funding of up to €35,000 in total to help cover costs associated with research trips.

According to its Constitution, ESSE’s goal is “to advance the education of the public by promoting the European study and understanding of English languages, literatures in English and cultures of English-speaking peoples”. Thus, ESSE welcomes applications for research trip bursaries from its members in Gender Studies within English Studies as a unique disciplinary support scheme offered by ESSE (for bursaries in other disciplinary areas in English Studies see: Bursaries for Research Trips in English Studies).

The purpose of Bursaries is to enable the bursary holders to make a short-term visit to a country where they can, for example, identify an outstanding holding, collection or other type of material relevant to their research, or where they gather corpus materials or conduct an experiment. Conference participation is not supported by these bursaries; bursary holders may extend their visit at their own expense, for example, to attend a conference in the country concerned, etc., but no part of the expenses that incur during the extended stay period will be covered by the bursary. Bursaries must be utilized and the study trips completed by 1 January 2025. The final expense report must be submitted to the Treasurer by 15 January 2025

ESSE offers two types of travel bursaries:

  • Type A: a number of bursaries of up to €1,800 each will be available for scholars in need of support to pursue a project or programme of research leading to the writing of their PhD dissertation.
  • Type B: a number of bursaries of up to €1,800 each will be available for scholars already holding a doctorate or its equivalent.

Eligibility

Applications are invited from individual members of all member associations. Bursaries are made on the basis of academic merit. Only one application per person is allowed. Applications for Type A and Type B Bursaries will not normally be entertained from candidates who have previously been successful in that competition.

Applicants for both types of bursaries must be members of their national associations affiliated to ESSE according to the official membership list submitted to ESSE in November 2023.

Applications

Applications should include the following:

  • the completed application form;
  • a research plan (900-1000 words);
  • a provisional budget proposal. Please use the ESSE Expense Form, and check the ESSE Budget and Reimbursement Guidelines;
  • for Type A bursaries, a letter of recommendation, not longer than 350 words, sent by the supervisor of the PhD candidate to the Committee e-mail address below. The letter of recommendation is to bear the official letterhead of the university, the position of the writer of the letter, and it must include a hand-written signature;
  • formally insufficient and incomplete applications as well as applications deviating significantly from the ESSE Budget and Reimbursement Guidelines will be disqualified.

In the application, the applicants should explain the relevance of their project for English studies and specify the length of the trip planned, even if the exact dates at the time of the application are not known. Applicants should briefly explain the reasoning behind the length of the proposed stay, bearing in mind that ESSE bursaries are intended to enable research visits to an institution in another country. Submitted proposals will be considered to have been drafted carefully with a clear focus on the activities connected to the proposed research project and a clearly specified budget. For this reason, it is expected that the research be carried out as specified in the accepted proposal. In case the ESSE project is embedded within a larger project, it must be spelt out how the expenses claimed from ESSE relate to other financial sources that supposedly contribute to covering the overall costs of the whole project (or longer stay). Any change to the original proposal for the research stay, after it has been accepted (e.g., changing the destination or the length of stay), is subject to the prior approval of the Selection Committee and the ESSE Treasurer. To seek the approval, the applicants should direct a motivated request to the Chair of the Selection Committee and to the ESSE Treasurer, in which they outline the exceptional and unforeseeable circumstances that have made it inevitable to alter the original proposal.

Please, send your application to the following address: essegrants@gmail.com 

Dates and Procedures

  • The deadline for applications for both types of Bursaries is 1 February 2024
  • Notification to the applicants will be sent (electronically) by 15 March 2024
  • After completing the research trip, bursary holders will be asked to send a financial report to the Treasurer of ESSE (esse.treasurer@outlook.com) and a report about their results to both the Treasurer and the Chair of the Selection Committee (essegrants@gmail.com). This latter report may be published in the ESSE Messenger. The grantee must acknowledge the ESSE grant in any publication, dissertation or conference presentation that is the output of the grant, and inform ESSE of this.

Selection Committee

  • Prof. Željka Babić (Chair)
  • Prof. Nóra Séllei  
  • Prof. Vladimir Ž. Jovanović
  • Prof. Jacek Fabiszak