Social Media Knowledge Exchange
Scholarship Scheme - Second Round


Call for Proposals Extended: Deadline 12 December 2012


The SMKE Scholarship scheme has already providing funding for six projects and has opened funding of up to £1,000 for additional knowledge exchange projects to run in academic year 2012-3. SMKE Scholars must be postgraduate students or early career researchers in the Arts and Humanities in any of the five participating institutions. The scholars' projects can be viewed here.

What is SMKE?

Communication through social media is becoming part of the fabric of everyday life for millions of people. A wide variety of public and private institutions use social media to share their goals and policies with the public, attract people to participate in activities they organise, and engage in dialogue with the users of their services. The AHRC Social Media Knowledge Exchange (SMKE) is a collaborative project that aims to give postgraduate students and early career researchers in the Arts and Humanities opportunities for knowledge exchange with social media practitioners in academia, museums, archives and libraries, and the voluntary sector. We understand 'social media' to mean online communication channels which allow the users of the service to create and exchange content with each other as well as with the channel owner.

Through a scholarship scheme, workshops and a conference, the Social Media Knowledge Exchange will help postgraduate students and early career researchers to develop skills to build their networks, reputation and esteem as researchers at a point when this is critically important to their careers, and provide them with structured opportunities to learn about social media practice outside their own discipline and institution, and in a wide variety of sectors beyond academia.

For more information on what we do, please visit the SMKE website. Information on the current SMKE themes can be found here. 

Who are we? 

The project is led by the University of Cambridge Digital Humanities Network (CDHN) and the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), in partnership with the Centre of Governance and Human Rights (CGHR). Partner institutions and contact details are as follows: 

For more details on the themes which each institution is developing, please see the document further details.

Who can apply?

The competition is open to postgraduate students and Early Career Researchers in the Arts and Humanities at the participating institutions.* Ten scholarships will be awarded. Interested applicants are advised to contact the leader of the SMKE project in their institution (listed above) to discuss their proposal before submitting.

SMKE Scholars will be based at their home institutions, and their project must engage with an audience of postgraduate students and early career researchers at that institution in knowledge exchange activities about social media practice.** Scholars will be encouraged to participate in the organisation of an SMKE workshop at their home institution and expected to attend the final conference of the SMKE project which will be held in Cambridge in July 2013. The scholarship includes a £500 bursary, a budget of up to £500 for project expenses (which must be submitted with the scholarship proposal) and travel and accommodation expenses to cover attendance at the final conference.

What is the scholarship award?

SMKE Scholars will be awarded a bursary of £500. This is a personal award and does not need a separate budget. It is conditional on scholars' acceptance of the terms and conditions of the scheme, including the delivery of agreed outputs for the SMKE website. Each SMKE scholar can also claim up to £500 budget for their project, which should be fully costed in your proposal. The budget will be held by the SMKE scholar's home institution.

How to Apply

Application is via the online system.  Applications will include:

  • Contact details including current post and institution
  • CV, uploaded as pdf
  • Project statement (up to 500 words) [typed into the field Recent Publications]. This should explain which non-academic social media users the project will engage with, what aspects of their social media practice you want to share with academic social media users, and how you believe that postgraduate students and early career researchers will benefit from this exchange.
  • Project outline (up to 500 words) [typed into the field Description]. This should explain clearly how the project will be delivered, it should include a brief description of any events or activities you will organise, and details of how the outcome of the project will be communicated to Arts and Humanities postgraduate students and early career researchers at your home institution. Additionally it should list the content which you will create for the SMKE website about the project (such as a series of blog posts or videos). Finally it must include a brief itemisation of proposed expenditure for the project (up to £500) and justification of these costs. The budget may be used for:
    • Travel, accommodation and subsistence for the SMKE scholar necessary to complete the project
    • Travel, accommodation and subsistence for other project participants (for example external speakers for a workshop or event run by the SMKE Scholar)
    • Media production costs
    • Web development costs
    • Publicity, venue hire, catering for events 
    • It may not be used for conference fees or equipment.

What are the judges looking for in a project proposal?

The current scholars' projects can be viewed here.  

Each participating institution is leading the development of a theme within the SMKE project. SMKE scholars projects may or may not relate to the themes. Applicants, regardless of home institution applying from, can propose projects that relate to any of the themes addressed by the scheme as a whole. Proposed projects must facilitate knowledge exchange between professional users of social media inside and outside academia. This goal can be achieved in a number of different ways, and in a wide variety of formats, but must be focussed on social media practice and must produce publicly-available content for the SMKE website, to be launched in mid-June, which has the primary aim of making the project findings accessible to postgraduate students and Early Career Researchers.

Proposals must demonstrate that they will specifically address the postgraduate / ECR community at their host institution, with practical ways of communicating reflections on practice to other postgraduates / ECRs at the host institution.

Proposals should involve the exploration of social media practice outside a research context.

Some examples of the kind of projects we envisage funding:
  • 'Shadowing' social media practitioners outside academia, reflecting on their use of social media, and communicating key points of convergence and difference with academic social media practice to an audience of postgraduate students and ECRs. This could involve following the launch of a new social media channel, or an attempt to reach a new audience through social media, or an attempt to build a different kind of relationship with an existing audience. We are not looking for projects to produce academic papers or reports, so communication could be via a blog, a series of short films, a visualisation or through a combination of social media forms. 
  • Initiatives which bring social media practitioners from outside academia into contact with postgraduate students and ECRs through networking events, showcases of social media practice and small workshops. These kind of events should be led by postgraduate students and ECRs and must not duplicate existing training programmes in the host institution. The project must include relevant outputs in the form of content for the SMKE website, such as a set of reflective interviews with selected participants, or a 'toolkit' or 'starter pack' for postgraduate students and ECRs who want to replicate such events in their own institution.
  • Toolkits or 'How To' guides. These should not be generic guides to 'Using Social Media' but address a specific theme or question raised by the practice of social media users outside academia. They should include specific examples and case studies or be developed in collaboration with social media practitioners outside academia.  
  • Social media tools. Project outputs can include digital tools or applications which facilitate the process of knowledge exchange between social media practitioners inside and outside academia.

 

 

For more information on the specific themes this page is available for download as a pdf. For any queries relating specifically to the online application procedure please email smke@crassh.cam.ac.uk.
 
*Students registered on a postgraduate degree course in the Arts and Humanities at one of the participating institutions or postdoctoral staff members in the Arts and Humanities employed by one of the participating institutions who are within 8 years of receiving their PhD or six years of their first academic appointment. For the Institute of Historical Research the scholar should be a member of the History Lab postgraduate network. Details of the subject areas which the AHRC includes in the Arts and Humanities are outlined in their Subject Coverage pdf.

 **Knowledge Exchange refers to the processes by which new knowledge is co-produced through interactions between academic and non-academic individuals and communities. This includes innovative activity brought about by the application of existing knowledge to new contexts.


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