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Birkbeck’s Wellcome Trust Institutional Funding for Research Culture (IFRC)

Birkbeck was founded in 1823 on the principle of access to education for working people. As the only research-intensive institution in the UK that has specialised in widening participation from its outset, we attract doctoral and post-doctoral students from groups traditionally disadvantaged in higher education. But barriers, including historic exclusion from knowledge production, lack of access to debt-free finance, and the sense of not feeling at home in academic spaces often mean that for these groups, the journey from PhD is interrupted or impossible.

Our proposal reimagines Birkbeck’s mission of widening access and participation for the twenty first century, focusing on knowledge production and institutional wellbeing through the retention and recruitment of a diverse and inclusive staff base.

We have identified three key aims:

  1. developing a diverse academic workforce from the bottom up
  2. recruitment and retention of a diverse academic workforce from ECR to professor
  3. coproduction of knowledge in health research.

Working in collaboration with historically excluded groups and communities, we offer career development grants for health researchers alongside seed funding for participatory health research and research culture initiatives. We believe that these activities will help us develop and sustain an inclusive, ethical and creative research environment that supports the progression of colleagues from PGR to Professor.

Our IFRC activities build on the successes of our Wellcome/Birkbeck ISSF programmes. All activities must fall within the  scientific or medical humanities remit of the Wellcome Trust. 

Projects confirmed so far

Nothing About Us Without Us

Projects to develop proof of concept research with people and communities who are often the subject of life, health and wellbeing research, but rarely engaged in knowledge production all the way through from inception to dissemination.

  • Professor Eddy Davelaar, Professor of Psychology and Applied Neuroscience, School of Psychological Sciences.
    • Identifying priorities in dementia research with people living with dementia and carers: a Delphi consensus study and grant co-development.
  • Professor Esther Leslie, Professor of Political Aesthetics, School of Creative Arts, Culture and Communication.
    • Health at the Crossroads: Towards a Research Repository of Strategies of Health Maintenance Through a Panoramic Investigation of Historical and Contemporary Practices, Experiences and Recollections of Health and Well-being in Somers Town across 250 years.
  • Professor Beth Grunfeld, School of Psychological Sciences
    • Health For All: Empowering Migrant Communities in The UK to Access Healthcare Services
  • Dr Laura Richards-Gray and Professor Alex Colas, Social Sciences
    • The Future of Food Work and Health: A Participatory Research Pilot on Health and Wellbeing Among UK Food Workers
  • Dr Victoria St. Clair, School of Psychological Sciences
    • Co-created approaches to identify research priorities for developmental science of deafness
  • Dr Sarah Marks (School of Historical Studies and Birkbeck Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Mental Health) and Dr Rachel Starr (Psychological Sciences and Birkbeck Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Mental Health)
    • The Film and Community Project: A co-produced project to understand the value that community arts engagement holds for people with lived experience of mental ill-health.
  • Dr Olivia Sheringham, School of Social Sciences
    • At the kitchen table: imagining care-full and healthy urban futures through storytelling and food in Sheffield

Faculty Seed Fund

Team science and/or interdisciplinary health research projects aimed at building a diverse, collaborative, creative, innovative research culture that is supportive of mental health and wellbeing.

  • Dr Joanna Farr, Lecturer, School of Psychological Sciences and Dr Aideen Foley, Reader in Environment and Society, School of Social Sciences
    • IDEA - Initiating Dialogue on Eco-Anxiety.
  • Dr Maheen Siddiqui, Dr Rianne Haartsen and Dr Chiara Bulgarelli, School of Psychological Sciences
    • Transforming Research Culture: Building an Inclusive Future for Developmental Science
  • Dr Grace Halden, School of Creative Arts, Culture and Communication
    • Impact of Fertility Treatment on Birkbeck Staff: Birkbeck Policy Implications
  • Professor Adam Gearey, Birkbeck Law School
    • Craft and Conviviality: Towards a Creative Research Culture
  • Dr Daniel Yon and Dr Helen Olawole-Scott, School of Psychological Sciences
    • Science Life and Career Evenings (SLiCE): A series for navigating life as an early career scientist

Salary extension schemes

  • Dr Eoin Fullam, School of Psychological Sciences. Chatbot Therapy: A Critical Analysis of AI Mental Health Treatment.
  • Denise Cadete, School of Psychological Sciences. Flexible Representation of body parts and extra body parts and the physics of bodily perception.
  • Helen Olawole-Scott, School of Psychological Sciences. Learning to trust our senses and hallucinations.
  • Kiara Avitali Wickremasinghe, School of Historical Studies. 'Open to Opera': A pilot project combining operatic singing and storytelling for well-being in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
  • Dr Georgina Donati, School of Psychological Sciences. Establishing a computer-based paradigm and physiological measurement of emotion regulation.
  • Dr Alex Murray, Institute for Crime and Justice Policy Research (ICPR), School of Social Sciences. Diverse Disabilities: Accessibility and Justice in the Tribunal.
  • Dr Jenni Robertson, School of Natural Sciences and School of Social Sciences. Earthquakes’ Hidden Health Aftershocks: Preparing and mitigating for post-earthquake infectious diseases informed by expert geological knowledge.
  • Clau di Gianfrancesco, School of Social Sciences. Theatre of the Oppressed and the Psychosocial Dimensions of Gender-Based Violence.
  • Dr Elena Gkivisi, School of Social Sciences. Philosophical Counselling and Mental Health Diagnostics; Theory and Practice.
  • Shannon Sahni, School of Social Sciences. Criminology: Exploring Women's Victimisation and Agency in Drug Dependency Through Space.
  • Dr Gordon Dodwell, School of Psychological Sciences. EEG correlates for the preparatory activation of attentional templates in search for conjunctively defined targets.
  • Dr Matthew Leonard, School of Historical Studies. Lethal Legacy: Living with the hidden 'more-than-human' ecologies of modern war.
  • Kate Errington, School of Creative Arts, Culture and Communication. Consolidating doctoral research in Medical Humanities on social histories of pregnancy risk and public health in twentieth century Britain.
  • Dr Hannah Reeves, School of Social Sciences. Exploring and augmenting the potential of Crossbones Graveyard, Southwark, as a source of community wellbeing.
  • Dr Steph Bowry, School of Historical Studies. '[F]or the delight and comfort of his wearied mind’: Promoting mental wellbeing in the early modern garden.
  • Dr Bouchra Attia, School of Natural Sciences. Structural and functional characterization of Arp2/3 complex in skeletal muscle physiology
  • Dr Magdalena Kachlika, School of Psychological Sciences. Building foundations for independent research in environmental sound perception.
  • Baye Berihun Asfaw (Psychological Sciences). Advancing Socio-culturally Attuned Mental Healthcare Research’
  • Dr Sunanda Williams (Natural Sciences): Relaxosome Mediated DNA Processing: A Structural Basis for Antibiotic Resistance Spread in Bacteria
  • Dr Nazm Bery (Psychological Sciences): Health psychology research through publications: dedicating time to preparing and submitting first-author manuscripts from PhD findings

For more information and to find out how to apply for a grant, please visit Birkbeck's Wellcome Trust Institutional Funding for Research Culture (IFRC) Sharepoint site (Birkbeck staff only).

For enquiries from outside of Birkbeck, please email the IFRC team.