We offer up to £5,500 each year for a UK philosophy department or other appropriate applicant to organise a conference, either on a single day or across multiple days, on a philosophical subject. While the primary criterion for the award of a grant will be the philosophical merit of the proposal, in the event of a number of proposals of equal philosophical merit being submitted, preference will be given to proposals which demonstrate – as regards theme, but also as regards location, publicity plans etc. – a capacity to engage the interest not only of professional philosophers but of members of the general public.
This initiative replaces the recent Public Philosophy Event scheme, and revives an earlier Royal Institute conference scheme.
Applications for the academic year 2024/2025 are now closed.
For the purposes of this scheme, 2024/25 events run from 1 Oct 2024 – 30 Sept 2025.
Applications should be made using the required application form. We will consider outline applications if full plans are not yet available.
Applicants should explain the theme, philosophical significance, timeliness, structure and location of the proposed conference.
Applicants should consider these questions in their proposals:
- Will you fully programme the event, issue a call for papers, or a mixture of the two?
- Will there be a separate category of papers for graduate students and/or early career researchers?
- Who has agreed in principle to take part? Applications which already have a strong list of agreed participants may be at an advantage.
- Where will the conference be held? Bear in mind that if it is part of your ambition to attract members of the general public, holding the conference off campus e.g. in an arts space, public library, theatre or museum is likely to be an advantage.
- How many people are you hoping to attract?
- Will you charge a registration fee? Ideally the Royal Institute would like the event to be completely free to all attending, with ambitions (e.g. number of speakers from overseas) tailored to meet that constraint. However in the event that a registration fee is charged we would expect various categories attending (minimally, students and the unwaged) to be exempt from the fee.
There is a requirement to produce a volume from the conference. £500 of the grant is for the editor of this volume, usually the conference event organiser. Invited participants should be told of the requirement to write a paper based on their contribution to the event, whether or not they read a draft of their paper at the conference. Broadly in line with the editorial policy of Philosophy, the papers submitted for the volume should be academically rigorous though free of unnecessary technicality. The papers submitted should be around 12 – 15 contributions and the total extent 70,000 – 100,000 words.
Applicants must take note of our conditions of sponsorship.