ESRC Society Today

The ESRC's international policy is implemented through it's structure of Committees and Networks. The International Network brings together expertise from Council and Committees to provide support for the ESRC's international activities and strategy.

International strategy

Developing ESRC's International agenda is a very high priority. UK social scientists should be able to collaborate with the best scholars anywhere in the world, to tackle global issues and advance the frontiers of knowledge. They should have ready access to high quality, user-friendly international funding opportunities and data sets. And the research they do should bear comparison with the best research in the world.

ESRC's international strategy centres on five main goals:

• Remove barriers to transnational research collaborations
• Provide tools, training and access to enable UK social scientists to tackle global issues
• Encourage UK social scientists to engage with international funding opportunities
• Engage with international agencies where this can bring benefits to UK social science
• Benchmark the quality of UK social science internationally     

Below you can read about some of our achievements to date and priority activities for 2008-09 and beyond.

Highlights in 2007-08

Removing barriers

• Introduced a policy piloted on behalf of all UK Research Councils, to allow international collaborators to be included as co-investigators on ESRC grants, with some costs associated.
• New bilateral agreement with Research Grants Commission of Hong Kong.
• Improved the processing of proposals under existing bilateral agreements: established an International Common Application Process in collaboration with Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), and implemented an agreement with the Irish Research Council for Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS), whereby funding decisions on jointly funded collaborative research projects are made by a single agency.
• Signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Indian Council for Social Science Research (ICSSR)
• Participated in the launch of the RCUK Offcies in China and the USA developed relations with Brazilian agencies and contributed to the Brazil-UK Year of Science.
• Finalised arrangements for the Research Programme on Migration under the auspices of the NORFACE ERA-NET (new Opportunities for Research Funding Co-operation in Europe) and contributed funding to the Pilot Programme on Re-emergence of Religion as a Social Force in Europe, under which two UK researchers received funding; two more received funding in the NORFACE 2007 Seminar Series round.
• Funded 32 International fellowship awards:  With the British Academy, 13 awards with South Asia and the Middle East, and with SSRC 19 Transatlantic Fellowships including 5 with Latin America.   
• Held two collaborative workshops to facilitate research collaboration with Central and Eastern Europe, on Energy Transformation and Population Change and Ageing.
• The ESRC/DfID initiative on Poverty Alleviation made 46 awards, and the ESRC-Hewlett Foundation call on economic development and population/reproductive health made 4 awards. 

Providing tools, training and access

• ESRC took the lead in organising jointly with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences a Foundation Conference for an International Data Forum, held in Beijing.  The Forum provides a mechanism to identify and prioritise data needs for cross-national collaborative social science research, and co-ordinates efforts by national research funding agencies and statistical authorities to make data more widely available for research purposes.
• The European Social Survey (ESS) received a positive evaluation from the European Commission, and a preparatory phase ESFRI proposal was invited.
• Scoping studies were published establishing the availability of social and economic micro-data in Brazil, China, South Africa and India.   

Encouraging engagement with international funding opportunities

• ESRC remained strongly engaged with the European Science Foundation (ESF) as it reviewed a number of its activities, including the ECRP sheme.  We welcomed applications for associated projects under the 2007 ESF Eurocores programmes in the social sciences, and are funding two projects under the LogiCCC programme.  For 2008, the ESRC is fully supporting the two social science Eurocores, on Higher Education and Social Change (EuroHESC) and better Analyses Based on Endangered languages (EuroBABEL).  We are also supporting the participation of UK researchers in several ESF Research Networking Programmes.  
• Four seed-funding awards were made to intending UK applicants for major projects within the European 7th Framework Programme (FP7, 2007-13).  Friendly links continue to be maintined with the European Research Council and we monitor its programme with great interest.   

Engagement with international agencies

• ESRC is actively contributing to the development of the Action Agenda and Business Plan of the International Social Science Council (ISSC).  There are opportunities for Internships at the ISSC
• ESRC played a leading role in launching an International Forum of Funding Agencies (IFFA), whose 17 members include Canada, China, India, South Africa and the United States.  IFFA held a successful first meeting on two key policy issues: capturing the impacts of research and the balance of research funding.   

Benchmarking the quality of UK social science internationally

• The Research Evaluation Committee delivered an international benchmarking review on UK Politics and International Studies, in partnership with the Political Studies Association and the British International Studies Association.  The reveiw commented on quality, capacity and impact.   

Priorities for 2008-09

During 2008-09 we shall aim to:

• Work closely with the RCUK Office in India, and in collaboration with the Indian Council for Social Science Research (ICSSR), launch an exchange scholarship scheme and establish a number of joint worshops.
• Enhance bilateral funding opportunities by promoting the adoption of the International Common Application Process, and adopt single-decision agreements where appropriate.
• Issue a call for bilateral proposals in conjunction with the National Research Foundation of South Africa.
• Commission projects under the NORFACE Research Programme on Migration.
• Continue to engage with the ESF and the ERC, working with colleagues across RCUK as appropriate.
• Issue two joint calls for collaboration between UK and US researchers, in conjunction with the national Science Foundation (NSF) and National Instiutes of Health (NIH) on health disparities/inequalities.
• Deliver collaborative workshops with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), and further develop our relationships with Chinese agencies.
• Explore relations and activities with Latin America on a bilateral and European basis.
• Issue further calls for the Transatlantic and South Asia/Middle East Visiting Fellowships.
• Commission a number of pilot projects on the secondary analysis of international microdata.
• Further develop and support the International Data Forum and European social science data infrastructures (e.g. ESS, SHARE, CESSDA).
• Publish an International benchmarking review of Economics.   

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