Prize Research Fellowship
The Prize Research Fellowship is open to academics in all areas of French Studies (see below), and will cover the cost of a one-semester replacement lectureship at the lowest point of the Junior Lecturer scale (to include gross salary, National Insurance, superannuation and a London allowance where applicable) to enable the successful candidate to take research leave.
The Prize Research Fellowship operates on a biennial basis, in alternate years to the Postdoctoral Prize Fellowship scheme. It will next be advertised in early 2025, with the successful applicant taking up the Fellowship during the 2025-26 academic year.
Applications will only be accepted from full-time employees of a Higher Education Institute in the UK or Ireland who have not benefited from externally-funded research leave in the three years prior to the date on which the Fellowship would commence. Candidates must have been a member of the Society at the appropriate rate for each of the three years prior to the Fellowship. The overriding criteria for selection are (i) the potential of the proposed research to result in a major contribution that will enhance the standing of French Studies both within the UK and Ireland and further abroad; and (ii) the academic standing and achievements of the candidate, taking into account their current career stage.
Current members of the SFS executive committee are not eligible to apply for this scheme.
Applications are judged by a panel consisting of the President and Vice-President of the Society and three other judges, two of whom are usually based outside the UK.
2023 winner
The 2023 Prize Research Fellowship (for 2023-24) was won by Manon Mathias (University of Glasgow), for the project 'Gut, Brain and Environment in Nineteenth-Century French Literature and Medicine'.
2021 winners
The Society awarded two Prize Research Fellowships in the 2021 round. The recipients were John McKeane (University of Reading), for the project 'Philosophy’s Others: Sarah Kofman and Barbara Cassin', and Claire Moran (Queen's University Belfast), for the project 'Morisot’s Modernism'.
2019 winner
The 2019 Prize Research Fellowship (for 2019-20) was won by Lucy O'Meara (University of Kent), for a project entitled 'Interrogating the Encyclopaedia in European Fiction and Autobiography 1870-2020'.
2018 winner
The 2018 Prize Research Fellowship (for 2018-19) was won by Hugh Roberts (University of Exeter), for a project entitled 'Poetry on trial: a digital edition of French libertine verse and court records (c.1622–25)'. The first publication from Prof. Roberts' project is available in Open Access.
2017 winner
The 2017 Prize Research Fellowship (for 2017-18) was won by Kathrin Yacavone (University of Nottingham), for a project entitled 'Portrait of the writer: photography and literary culture in France'. An outline of her project has been published in the Summer 2018 issue of French Studies Bulletin: A Quarterly Supplement.
2016 winner
The 2016 Prize Research Fellowship (for 2016-17) was won by Bill Marshall (University of Stirling), for a project entitled 'Uses of prehistory in modern and contemporary France: visual cultures, cultural theory'. An outline of his project has been published in the Summer 2017 issue of French Studies Bulletin: A Quarterly Supplement.