Our Work
We remain steadfast in our mission: making philosophy accessible to everyone, everywhere.
Since our foundation in 1925, the Royal Institute of Philosophy has tirelessly pursued its educational mission through grants, public lectures, publications, teaching programmes, and much more. The results speak for themselves: over the past year alone, more than 8,300 people attended an event or took part in a grant-funded programme
Below, we highlight some of the Royal Institute’s key achievements over the past decade and more.
Bursary & Studentship programme
From 2011-2024, TRIP was able to provide over £870,000 of studentship funding to help students complete their PhDs.
With the generous support of the Jacobsen Foundation, TRIP offers bursary and studentship grants each year.
One student’s testimonial : “Following an illness that severely impacted my studies I found myself at the end of my third year and my previous funding had ended. If I would not have been granted the Royal Institute of Philosophy funding I would have had to quit my PhD to make ends meet.”
Graduate Conference Programme
In 2023-24 the Royal Institute awarded grants totalling over £5,000 to support Graduate students to organise conferences.
Schools Programme
Since 1997 The Royal Institute of Philosophy has sponsored conferences for philosophy teachers and students at schools and sixth form colleges across the UK.
Over the past decade we have awarded over £890,000 to schools around the country to support the teaching of philosophy.
This meant that in the past year alone the Royal Institute have been able to deliver specialist-led philosophy programmes to over 1,600 school pupils around the country alongside offering
- A masterclass video series
- A-level guides supporting philosophy syllabi
- Access to our student-friendly journal Think
Prisons Programme
For over 20 years, the Royal Institute has been delivering a philosophy programme for prisoners in England. Working alongside specialist providers, ex-prisoners and experienced philosophers, our programmes have reached into women’s prisons, young offenders units and men’s high security and category C prisons. Despite severe restrictions imposed in recent years our programme continues to grow.
Thanks to support from Sheffield University, some of our programmes are able to provide certificates of attainment to prisoners upon completion, granting many academic recognition for the very first time.
Public Philosophy Programmes
The London Lectures which go all the way back to 1925 remain TRIP’s flagship annual offering. Our public philosophy programming now also includes a distinguished annual lecture in each of the four capital cities of the British Isles, an annual conference whose proceedings are published as a supplement to Philosophy, and an annual symposium.
In this years centenary series of London Lectures, some of the world’s leading philosophers’ will reflect on where their area of philosophy has got to over the last hundred years, and where it might go in the next.
Nayef Al Rodhan International Book Prize in Transdisciplinary Philosophy
Established in 2023 thanks to the generous support of Professor Nayef Al-Rodhan, this annual book prize celebrates philosophical works that transcend disciplinary boundaries.
This year the prize was awarded to Mazviita Chirimuuta for her outstanding publication ‘The Brain Abstracted’, which crosses the boundaries between philosophy and neuroscience to propose a new way of thinking about scientific theories and models.
Local Partners Network
Over the decades the Royal Institute has built a strong network of partnerships with universities, charities, other non-academic organisations and informal local groups across the UK.
In 2023-24 our dedicated grant programme distributed £44,500 to a range of partners for their philosophy programming across the UK.
“We are extremely grateful for support from The Royal Institute of Philosophy in running the Open Minds programme. For many attendees, this kind of experience is either rare or non-existent in their lives, and the opportunity to engage with important questions, and explore ideas and arguments with others, is empowering and energising… The Thinker Hub CIC would not be viable without the support of TRIP and other organisations”.
– Glenn Skelhorn, Open Minds CIC
“We are extremely grateful for the support of the Royal Institute of Philosophy. It enables us to engage in an unusually wide range of forms of outreach”.
– Rowan Cruft, University of Stirling
“Our older adults have greatly benefitted from this new social and academic opportunity”.
– Laura Taylor, Open Age Charity
Publications
Every year we publish two journals – Philosophy and Think – and two thematically focused volumes. Both journals also hold annual essay prize competitions. With a worldwide readership, income from these publications helps to support the full range of TRIP’s other programmes, ensuring that we continue to make the best philosophy available to the public free at source.