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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - TLRH-VRF COFUND (Trinity Long Room Hub Visiting Research Fellows COFUND programme)

Teaser

Summary

The Trinity Long Room Hub, the Arts and Humanities research institute in Trinity College Dublin has operated a visiting fellowship programme since 2010.
That programme has been a critical component of the institute\'s strategy to advance and promote on an international level the excellence of the Arts and Humanities research environment not only in TCD but in Ireland. However the programme had its limitations.
Funding available to it was constrained. Funding was sought from the MCSA scheme to help address the following problems or gaps in the initial fellowship offering.

Fellows were restricted to an average fellowship period of three months which did not really leave sufficient time for deepening fellow\'s competences or networks nor for the undertaking of a significant research project while they were here. These short periods of time were also not really conducive to fellows with family obligations as they were long enough to be disruptive to day to day family life but not sufficiently long to justify moving family members to Ireland for the duration of the fellowship

The fellowship also did not offer very attractive financial incentives with fellows having to pay upfront for living expenses and re-claim these at a later point. This meant the fellowship really only seemed to garner attention from more senior scholars who were in a more financially secure situation and able to absorb living costs while waiting for payment to be deffered. Earlier stage scholars tended in the main not to apply.

The fellowship programme was not very closely aligned to the research themes the Trinity Long Room Hub supported and as such a disjoint emerged sometimes between the fellows and research projects supported and the research themes which the Trinity Long Room Hub prioritized.

The specific objectives for this fellowship programme are:
â€¢ To offer 9 excellent experienced researchers from across the spectrum of the Arts and Humanities an opportunity to spend a fellowship of 12 months duration at Trinity College Dublinâ€™s Arts and Humanities Research Institute;
â€¢ To attract high quality international researchers from Europe and all over the world via more attractive employment conditions including an employment contract and via wide and rigorous promotion of the calls while open
â€¢ To integrate appointed fellows in the research activities of Trinityâ€™s 5 Arts and Humanities led research themes
â€¢ To provide fellows with training and networking opportunities that will enhance their career development potential
â€¢ To identify the relevance of their work for other sectors outside academia including the public (via the inclusion of a secondment element in the programme and via participation in the public engagement activities of the Long Room Hub) and to provide them with interdisciplinary research opportunities.

Work performed

At this first periodic review stage, three fellows have completed two thirds of their twelve month fellowships (24 fellowship months), from 1 October 2017 to end of May 2018. A second cohort of three fellows have accepted contracts: two fellows will take up their fellowships from 1 October 2018 to 30 September 2019, one will start on August 15th 2018 and finish on August 14th 2019 to facilitate the school needs of young children.

Following a rigorous international competition, all fellows appointed to date have been offered twelve month full time employment contracts by Trinity College Dublin. This is a significantly longer fellowship duration then that which was previously enabled under the TLRH fellowship programme. This longer period will allow researchers a more concentrated period to extend their research networks, strengthen and deepen new skills/competencies and to undertake a more substantial research project leading to new outputs
It is also more family friendly in that it allows a longer period of time for researchers with family obligations to actually bring family members to Ireland to stay with them as they undertake the fellowship

The TLRH VRF COFUND programme has emerged as a very competitive programme. 133 applications from researchers of all career stages have been received in the two calls to date for 6 fellowship positions (80: 2017-18 and 53: 2018-19). Because of the very competitive nature of the programme only the highest scoring fellows are selected for funding. The individuals awarded fellowships so far under this programme are of a high calibre and have strong track records in terms of previous work and research experience.

A critical component of the programme is the training and networking opportunities afforded to the fellows. The primary medium of training for the researchers is the training through research they engage in while working on their projects. As part of this each of the fellows liaises closely with their appointed mentor during their fellowship from whom they receive advice and guidance on aspects such as how to extend their methodologies and how to navigate new analytical frameworks.
A suite of training options (some discipline specific and others more transferable in nature) are also made available to fellows under the programme many of them organised in collaboration with other fellowship programmes being run concurrently in TCD.

In terms of networking one of the primary ways this programme seeks to enable fellows extend their networks is through aligning their projects and mentors to one of the 5 interdiscipinary research themes supported by the Trinity Long Room Hub. Exposure to colleagues working in disparate disciplinary areas is aligned to the TLRHâ€™s mission of helping act as a catalyst for conversations and collaborations on interdisciplinary research

Final results

We expect significant impacts from the programme in terms of scholarly outputs i.e journal articles, book chapter and books. These will be fully tracked however it may take a number of years for these impacts to fully emerge due to the length of time often involved in having outputs approved for final publication.
We do however expect that the programme will have a big impact on the career trajectories of the fellows involved. All 3 of the fellows appointed under the first year of the programme have confirmed employment for the period directly following the end of their fellowships with one of the fellows having secured funding to remain in TCD to undertake further research.