Carnevali Small Research Grants Scheme

The Economic History Society maintains a fund to encourage small-scale research initiatives or pilot studies in economic and/or social history.  Funds are available to support the direct costs of research that is aimed at a specific publication outcome and/or for pilot projects that will form the foundation for applications to other bodies for more substantial funding. Please note that any award made would not cover:

• Conference attendance costs
• Equipment costs
• Publication costs
• Subsistence costs (i.e. food and drink)
• Administration costs
• Salary buy-out/teaching cover
• Indirect costs
• Room hire costs (where the venue is the applicant’s home institution)

Applicants must be members of the Economic History Society (join here), and must be employed by, or affiliated to, a UK higher education institution. Grants will be up to a maximum of £5,000.  Note that the online application form will only be visible if you are logged into the website.

Closing dates for applications are on the first day of May and November.  Applicants will usually be informed of the outcome of their application within 6-8 weeks of the deadline date for applications.

• Full details

  Applicants will be asked to provide:

  • A brief description of the research (1,000 words) including its potential contribution to the discipline of economic and/or social history.
  • The expected outcome of the research in terms of target publication or further grant application.
  • A budget for the proposed research.
  • Details of applications to other funders and funding already secured.
  • A short report one year after the award has been made.

  Whatever the sum granted, there must be a specific prominent acknowledgement of the Society’s support in any publicity, meeting materials or publications. All applications should demonstrate that Society funds are sought for a clearly defined, discrete piece of research, which would potentially lead to publication in the leading journals of our discipline.

  It is expected that successful applicants will be, or will become, members of the Economic History Society.  Successful applicants will not be eligible to apply to the scheme again for three years.

  Closing dates for applications are on the first day of May and November.  Applicants will usually be informed of the outcome of their application within 6-8 weeks of the deadline date for applications.

• Past winners

  Examples of awards made from the Carnevali Small Research Grants Scheme include those to:

  Dr Chris Briggs (University of Cambridge)
  Production and consumption in English peasant households, c.1300-c.1550

  This Economic History Society small grant funds a pilot study intended to lay the groundwork for a larger research project on living standards in medieval England. Our ultimate aim is to gain better knowledge and understanding of the personal possessions of medieval rural people (their number, range, value), so that we can make comparisons with the probate inventories of later centuries. This work is interdisciplinary. We are using the EHS grant to establish the potential of two main categories of evidence, one written and one material. These are inventories of the goods and chattels of felons, fugitives and outlaws preserved in the royal archives, and archaeological finds from rural sites. By combining these two categories of evidence we hope to be able to overcome various weaknesses and omissions in each, and to ask new questions. The EHS grant has funded archival sampling and an investigation of the published and unpublished archaeological reports. This work is enabling us to get a better sense of the scope for a larger project at either the regional or national scale. Dr Matthew Tompkins is the archival researcher, Dr Ben Jervis is responsible for the survey of archaeological literature, and the project is overseen by Dr Chris Briggs.

  Dr Nicole Robertson (University of Northumbria)
  The office: British clerical workers and the labour market, 1920-1970
  
  The period following the First World War saw a growth in the number of workers in white-collar jobs relative to those engaged in manual work. Within this group of white-collar workers one of the major changes in the labour force was the increasing numbers of clerical workers. This project will examine this transformation of clerical work in the period after 1920, situating developments and processes within the context of the growth of large-scale industrial organisations. The project focuses on the experience of clerks working in a variety of industries including railway, hosiery and mining. Using the records of clerical trade unions, Clerks’ Associations and employers of white-collar workers, the project will focus around three main themes: gender at work; patterns of work and career structure; and commercial education and new technology.

  The project will explore how clerical work contributes to an understanding of the labour market and the experience of employment by examining three major themes: the characteristics of female and male employment, and unemployment, in the twentieth century; the origins and development of low-grade, low-paid clerical work and pay differentials within this sector of white-collar employment; and the use of new technology in the workplace, the implications of this for clerical workers, and the way this was presented to (and received by) white-collar workers and their trade unions.

  Economic recession and industrial restructuring have been important in bringing questions about experiences of work, and unemployment, to the fore. This project, by examining the nature, practice and conditions of clerical work, will inform important debates on social and economic history of waged work and pay in the twentieth century.