The Mind Association did not offer a 6-Month Research Fellowship in 2022-23.
About the Fellowships
The fellowships are intended for early and mid-career academics in post, part-time or full-time, in an institution of higher education in the UK or Republic of Ireland who are engaged in research in any area of philosophy. For the purposes of these awards, ‘early and mid-career’ is understood as staff who are not full professors. If potential applicants wish to discuss their eligibility for these awards, they should contact The Mind Association’s Director at MindAssoc@gmail.com.
One of the aims of the fellowships scheme is to support academics who are substantially burdened with teaching or administrative duties. The fellowships may be used to fund research leave for projects at any stage of completion, including initial stages of research, however the Committee strongly advise applicants to include a timetable of work indicating clearly what the outcome of the research leave is intended to be. The grants will be paid to the universities at which the scholars are employed, and each grant will exactly cover the cost of a six-month lectureship at the lowest spinal point of the Lecturer A scale or equivalent as specified by the rules of the institution, plus on costs (National Insurance, pension, and London Allowance where appropriate). Or, in the case of a part-time award, the grant will be proportional.
An additional benefit available to the holder of a Mind Research Fellowship is Mind Association-funded attendance at, and travel to, the Joint Session of the Aristotelian Society and Mind Association taking place in the year in which the fellowship is held. Information on the next Joint Session can be found here. Applicants should state in their accompanying email or cover letter whether they intend to take up this offer if successful.
Mind Association Research Fellow
The Mind 6-month Fellowship for 2021-22 was awarded to Dr Luca Barlassina (Sheffield) for his project, The Cognitive Structure of the Affective Mind. Please see the ‘Mind Fellows’ tab for details of Dr Barlassina’s project.
Conditions of the award
- Award of a Fellowship is conditional on the university’s agreeing, by way of a letter from the Head of Department, Dean, or other appropriate officer, that the funds will be wholly used to release the scholar from all administrative and teaching duties (with the optional exception of supervising doctoral students) by making a replacement appointment equivalent to a full six-month lectureship (as opposed to a teaching fellowship or teaching focused lectureship). Please note that since the Association intends the replacement teaching post to represent a new employment opportunity, academics whose time would be freed up for the post by taking unpaid leave from another job are not normally eligible.
- A research fellowship should supplement, rather than be a substitute for, any institutional leave for which successful candidates are eligible.
How to apply
Applications should be sent as soft copy by email to The Mind Association’s Director at MindAssoc@gmail.com. You should expect an acknowledgement by email within two or three weeks; if you do not receive an acknowledgement, then you cannot assume your application has been safely received.
The deadline for applications for the 2021-22 Fellowships was 15 February 2021. Applicants were notified of the outcome of their application in April 2021.
Applications should consist of:
- A CV (covering the last five years) which includes: the names of two referees (not more than one of which may from the applicant’s home institution); details of administrative and teaching duties; periods of research leave; any non-academic commitments curtailing research time, such as career breaks, maternity or paternity leave, prolonged ill-health, or caring for a sick relative; a statement of what institutional leave, if any, the applicant expects to have during the current academic year and the next academic year; a statement of the applicant’s entitlement to research leave under his or her institution’s current policy; a statement of other sources of financial support for which the applicant intends to apply and which would cover terms/semesters consecutive with the period of research that would be covered by the Mind Fellowship. (The fellowship may be held consecutively with institutional leave, but not with any other funded research fellowship).
- A research proposal of not more than 1200 words saved as a separate document with no name on it and anonymised throughout as far as possible (as per blind review). The review process will be in two stages and in the first stage reviewers will only look at this element of applications, thus these research proposals should be independent documents and should not make reference to material which occurs elsewhere in the application.
- A letter from the scholar’s Head of Department, Dean, or equivalent university officer stating that the funds will be used only to fund a replacement six-month lectureship, with the fellow being wholly released from all teaching and admin duties for the duration of the fellowship (with the optional exception of continuing to supervise no more than their normal number of doctoral students).
Application data will be kept for three years after the application has been completed for monitoring purposes. After the three year period has elapsed, it will be deleted.
Referees
Applicants should supply the names of two potential referees whom the sub-committee may consult if need be. Applicants should seek the referees’ permission for their names to go forward, and should send them the final version of the research proposal for information.
The Executive regrets that it is not possible to offer feedback to applicants.
Selection Process
In any given round the selection procedure is normally as follows: the selection is made by a sub-committee of three members of the Mind Executive Committee possessing a suitable spread of expertise between them (but not the Director or Treasurer); the membership of the sub-committee tends to alter by at least one member from year to year; applicants’ research proposals are read in anonymised form and provisionally ranked prior to other application materials being introduced into the decision process.
Post-award reporting
A report on the work supported by the fellowship should be sent as soft copy to the Director, Prof Jonathan Webber, at MindAssoc@gmail.com no more than three months after the term of the fellowship. This report should have two elements:
- Confirmation from the Dean, Head of Department, or appropriate officer of how the money was spent, and giving the name of the replacement lecturer appointed.
- A summary of the research done during the fellowship.
Current Fellows
Mind Association Research Fellows, 2021-22
The Mind Association is delighted to announce its six-month research fellow for 2021-22. A Fellowship has been awarded to Dr Luca Barlassina (Sheffield). A brief abstract of his project is set out below:
Luca Barlassina (Sheffield): The Cognitive Structure of the Affective Mind
I will work on a book that puts forward a novel, interdisciplinary account of the nature of affective states such as interoceptive sensations, emotions, and moods. The book is structured around two key claims:
(1) Representational expansion: Each emotion is the result of an evolutionary process that extended an interoceptive capacity to represent objects in the environment; and each mood is in turn the result of co-opting emotional capacities to represent the environment as a whole.
(2) Reflexive imperativism. These representational states have affective phenomenology: they feel good/bad. I propose that affective states feel good/bad in virtue of issuing the self-directed command: Get more/less of me!
By putting together (1) and (2), one gets this picture of the cognitive architecture of the affective mind: affective capacities initially focused on one’s body, and were then subjected to an evolutionary process that first extended their focus outside the body, and subsequently turned their focus back onto themselves, thereby giving rise to affective phenomenology.
The Mind executive congratulates Dr Barlassina, and also thanks all applicants for submitting their proposals. As always, the field was extremely strong and speaks very well for the health of philosophy in the UK.
Previous Fellows
2020-21 Elena Cagnoli Fiecconi (UCL): Ethics for Rational Animals; and Heather Logue (Leeds): Perceptual Experience.
2019-20 Craig Bourne (Hertfordshire): Truth in Fiction: A Contextualist Account; and Graeme Forbes (Kent): A Defence of the Growing-Block.
2018-19 Stephen deWijze (Manchester): Dirty Hands: A Philosophical Analysis; and Mona Simion (Cardiff): Epistemic Norms: a Function-First Account.
2017-18 Stephanie Collins (Manchester): Modelling Collective Obligations; and Mark Jago (Nottingham): Developing Truth-maker Semantics
2016-17 Gerald Lang (Leeds): Strokes of Luck; and Lubomira Radoilska (Kent): Knowledge in Action
2015-16 Matthew Tugby (Durham)
2014-15 Anastasia Scrutton (Leeds); and Stephen Barker (Nottingham)
2013-14 Elizabeth Barnes (Leeds)
2012-13 Fiona Leigh (UCL); and Jason Turner (Leeds)
Other past recipients include: Simon Kirchin (Kent); Penelope Mackie (Nottingham); Sarah Patterson (Birkbeck); Cynthia Macdonald (Queen’s, Belfast); Murali Ramachandran (Sussex); Komarine Romdenh-Romluk (Nottingham).
Mind Major Research Fellowship (12 months)
Applications for Mind 12-Month Research Fellowship 2023-24
The Mind Association previously invited applications for a 12-month Mind Major Research Fellowship for the 2023-24 academic year. The deadline for applications was Tuesday 28 February 2023. Applicants were notified of the outcome before Wednesday 31 May 2023.
About the Fellowships
This award is intended for academics in post, part-time or full-time, in an institution of higher education in the UK or Republic of Ireland. Competition for these awards is open in terms of both philosophical area and career stage of applicant. One of the aims of the fellowship scheme is to support academics who are substantially burdened with teaching or administrative duties. The fellowship may be used to fund research leave for a project at any stage of completion, including initial stages of research, but the Executive strongly advises applicants to include a timetable of work indicating clearly what the outcome of the research leave is intended to be. The grants will be paid to the universities at which the scholars are employed, and each grant will exactly cover the cost of a twelve-month lectureship at the lowest spinal point of the Lecturer A scale or equivalent as specified by the rules of the institution, plus on costs (National Insurance, pension, and London Allowance where appropriate). Or, in the case of a part-time award, the grant will be proportional.
An additional benefit available to the holder of a Mind Research Fellowship is Mind Association-funded attendance at, and travel to, the Joint Session of the Aristotelian Society and the Mind Association taking place in the year in which the fellowship is held. Information on the next Joint Session can be found here. Applicants should state in their accompanying email or cover letter whether they intend to take up this offer if successful.
Mind Association Research Fellow
The Mind 12-month Fellowship for 2023-24 was awarded to Professor Alessandra Tanesini (Cardiff) for her project, Commitments online: Taking Responsibility for One’s Words on Social Media. Please see the ‘Mind Fellows’ tab for details of Professor Tanesini’s project.
Conditions of the award
- Award of a Fellowship is conditional on the university’s agreeing, by way of a letter from the Head of Department, Dean, or other appropriate officer, that the funds will be wholly used to release the scholar from all administrative and teaching duties (with the optional exception of supervising doctoral students) by making a replacement appointment equivalent to a full twelve-month lectureship (as opposed to a teaching fellowship or teaching focused lectureship). Please note that since the Association intends the replacement teaching post to represent a new employment opportunity, academics whose time would be freed up for the post by taking unpaid leave from another job are not normally eligible.
- A research fellowship should supplement, rather than be a substitute for, any institutional leave for which successful candidates are eligible.
How to apply
Applications should be sent as soft copy by email to The Mind Association’s Director at MindAssoc@gmail.com. You should expect an acknowledgement by email within two or three weeks; if you do not receive an acknowledgement, then you cannot assume your application has been safely received.
The Mind Association is pleased to invite applications for a 12-month Mind Major Research Fellowship for the 2023-24 academic year. The deadline for applications is Tuesday 28 February 2023. Applicants will be notified of the outcome by Wednesday 31 May 2023.
Applications should consist of:
- A CV (covering the last five years) which includes: the names of two referees (not more than one of which may be from the applicant’s home institution); details of administrative and teaching duties; periods of research leave; any non-academic commitments curtailing research time, such as career breaks, maternity or paternity leave, prolonged ill-health, or caring for a sick relative; a statement of what institutional leave, if any, the applicant expects to have during the current academic year and the next academic year; a statement of the applicant’s entitlement to research leave under his or her institution’s current policy; a statement of other sources of financial support for which the applicant intends to apply and which would cover terms/semesters consecutive with the period of research that would be covered by the Mind Fellowship. (The fellowship may be held consecutively with institutional leave, but not with any other funded research fellowship).
- A research proposal of not more than 1200 words saved as a separate document with no name on it and anonymised throughout as far as possible (as per blind review). The review process will be in two stages and in the first stage reviewers will only look at this element of applications, thus these research proposals should be independent documents and should not make reference to material which occurs elsewhere in the application.
- A letter from the scholar’s Head of Department, Dean, or equivalent university officer stating that the funds will be used only to fund a replacement twelve-month lectureship, with the fellow being wholly released from all teaching and admin duties for the duration of the fellowship (with the optional exception of continuing to supervise no more than their normal number of doctoral students).
Application data will be kept for three years after the application has been completed for monitoring purposes. After the three year period has elapsed, it will be deleted.
Referees
Applicants should supply the names of two potential referees whom the Fellowships Sub-Committee may consult if need be. Applicants should seek the referees’ permission for their names to go forward, and should send them the final version of the research proposal for information.
The Executive regrets that it is not possible to offer feedback to applicants.
Selection Process
In any given round the selection procedure is normally as follows: the selection is made by a sub-committee of three members of the Mind Executive Committee possessing a suitable spread of expertise between them (but not the Director or Treasurer); the membership of the sub-committee tends to alter by at least one member from year to year; applicants’ research proposals are read in anonymised form and provisionally ranked prior to other application materials being introduced into the decision process.
Post-award reporting
A report on the work supported by the fellowship should be sent as soft copy to the Director, Prof Jonathan Webber, at MindAssoc@gmail.com no more than three months after the term of the fellowship. This report should have two elements:
- Confirmation from the Dean, Head of Department, or appropriate officer of how the money was spent, and giving the name of the replacement lecturer appointed.
- A summary of the research done during the fellowship.
Current Fellows
Mind Association Research Fellow
The Mind Association is delighted to announce its major award research fellow for 2023-24. The Major (12-month) Fellowship has been awarded to Alessandra Tanesini (Cardiff) for her project, Commitments online: Taking Responsibility for One’s Words on Social Media. Professor Tanesini’s abstract is set out below.
Alessandra Tanesini (Cardiff): Commitments online: Taking Responsibility for One’s Words on Social Media.
Conversations can be easily derailed on social media. Tempers are often frayed. It can be remarkably hard to engage others in serious and honest debate. In my research I argue that these communicative ills are partly facilitated by the structural features or affordances of these digital platforms. I restrict my analysis primarily to text-based Social Networking Sites (SNSs) such as X, WhatsApp, LinkedIn and Facebook. My research is based on three observations. First, SNSs are spaces where attention is a valuable good in short supply. Second, SNSs are places where communication at scale is effortless. Third, SNSs are locations where it is harder than offline to make oneself accountable for the commitments to sincerity, truth, authority and so forth that constitute or regulate contributions to conversations. It is also harder to hold other conversants accountable. I plan to write a book that develops these three observations to argue that the affordances of social media systematically affect which communicative acts (as constituted by their characteristic commitments and entitlements) are performed online. The overall result is that acts constituted or governed by less demanding norms prevail.
Previous Fellows
2022-23 Jules Holroyd (Sheffield): Praise Be! A critical evaluation of praise
2021-22 Professor Nicholas Shackel (Cardiff): Bertrand’s Paradox and the Principle of Indifference
2019-20 Professor Rosa Antognazza (King’s College London):Thinking with Assent: Renewing a Traditional Account of Knowledge and Belief
2017-18 Professor Jessica Brown (St. Andrews): Blame: Epistemic and Moral
2015-16 Professor Rae Langton (Cambridge): Accommodating Injustice
Other past recipients include: Alexander Bird (Bristol); Alex Oliver (Cambridge); Quassim Cassam (Warwick).