We are pleased to announce a new essay competition for our Cultural Relations Collection – a series that explores British Council contexts and case studies to reflect on the theory and practice of international cultural relations more broadly.

We’d be very grateful if you could forward these details to anyone in your research networks and centres who might be interested in taking part.

Apart from the opportunity to have an essay published (for which up to four prizes of £1,000 will be awarded) the competition is intended to promote knowledge exchange, network building and collaboration between UK-based academics and British Council experts from across our global network. See below for the different themes that are in scope.

The competition is open to all researchers affiliated to a UK university. We welcome proposals from those at all career stages, though the opportunity might be particularly suited to PhD and early-career researchers. We also welcome proposals from more established academics who have emerging ideas that they want to ‘test out’ or apply to new research contexts.

The ten strategic themes for this competition are:

• Cultural exchange through the British Council teaching centre network: Connecting Countries
• The impact and interaction of festivals upon emerging creative economies in Sub Saharan Africa
• The process of cultural relations: DICE and Cultural Heritage for Inclusive Growth
• 'Going virtual' through science communication at the time of a pandemic: FameLab
• How collaborations in science and innovation contribute to sustainable development and cultural relations: The Newton Fund
• Teachers as agents of cultural relations and intercultural understanding
• Lifelong connections: the value of British Council alumni
• Language for Resilience in cultural relations: then and now
• Cultural relations in international intercultural urban environments
• From cultural relations to cultural intelligence: Southern Africa Arts

For summaries of each theme, application guidelines, timetable and further details, please visit the British Council website

The deadline for submitting an initial essay proposal is 10 July 2020.

Competition details will also be tweeted from the @InsightBritish Twitter account – so please do re-tweet if you can!

Many thanks in advance for your help.

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