Opportunity

Education and COVID-19 – BERA Small Grants Fund

As part of our response to the ongoing COVID-19 situation, BERA is establishing a small grants fund for research into the impact of the Coronavirus (COVID-19).

This fund aims to support a discrete piece of research on the impact of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) on education and/or educational research.

The value of each individual award is up to £4,000 and at this stage, BERA has designated funding for up to three projects. If budget allows and there are sufficient high quality applications, BERA Council may chose to make additional awards.

This award is open to single applicants or team of researchers. All applicants must be a current individual member of BERA and where possible, teams of researchers should include an early career researcher. Recipients of the funding would be expected to write at least one BERA Blog on the subject of their research and we will decide on the appropriate format to publish a final version of their report, which may be an article in Research Intelligence or a stand-alone publication. Depending on the situation, we may also look to hold an event on the subject of each or collectively.

The award has a maximum research time span of up to 7 months and a final report must be submitted to BERA in line with the timetable set out below.

Criteria for assessment

Proposals should be submitted on a proforma and each proposal will be judged as to its:

Clarity of the focus of the research
Originality of the research
Rigour of the research
Significance of the research for education practice, policy or theory

BERA reserves the right not to make any award if insufficient quality proposals are submitted.

Timeline

Monday 6th July – deadline for submissions
W/C Monday 20th July – final awards made and research to commence
Monday 2nd November – interim report and update provided to BERA
Monday 15th March 2021 – final report submitted to BERA

Format

The specific approach and methodology will be for each project to agree for itself at the point of application. We expect there to be tangible outcome of each proposal.

Participation

BERA would like these projects to help the discipline, potentially working alongside practitioners and policy-makers, to contribute to and lead current debates. It should be noted that we wish to encourage the development of research capacity through involving postgraduate students and early career researchers.

Research Ethics

The host organisation is responsible for ensuring that ethical issues relating to the research project are identified and brought to the attention of the relevant approval or regulatory body. Approval to undertake the research must be granted before any work requiring approval begins. Ethical issues should be interpreted broadly and may encompass, among other things, relevant codes of practice, the involvement of human participants, tissue or data in research, the use of animals, research that may result in damage to the environment and the use of sensitive economic, social or personal data. The BERA Ethical Guidelines can be found here.

How to apply