Fellowships and Grants

Ahead of the autumn 2017 round of grant funding, an additional Advisory Council meeting took place in the summer of 2017 to discuss possible changes to the awards. As a result of this meeting the Curatorial Research Grant and Digital Project Grant maximum totals were increased to £40,000 per award. This was changed in order to help fund projects for their entirety. The two Publication Grants, one for publishers and one for authors, were combined into one award. Totals could still be requested by both publishers and authors, but it also allowed them to apply together for the larger total amount of £10,000. Recognition for articles was also included in the new award, allowing up to £1,000 to be requested for image rights by authors of short-form writings.

In autumn 2017 a total of 169 applications were received for the awards offered by the Centre, of which 61 were successful. The newly revised Publication Grant received a total of 71 applications, of which 30 were successful. Curatorial Research Grants received 22 applications, of which 7 received awards, and 2 applications were successful and awarded the full amount of £40,000 each in the Digital Project Grant awards, out of a total of 10 applications received. There was a lower-than-average number of Research Support Grant applications, with 39 in total and 12 successful. The Educational Programme Grants remained steady: 19 applications were received, of which 8 were successful. The Andrew Wyld Research Support Grant attracted 4 applications and 2 awards were given.

A new fellowship was introduced during the spring 2018 round of awards. The Terra-PMC Fellowship awards one scholar a Fellowship of £9,500 in order to pursue research on an aspect of artistic dialogue between Britain and the United States from any period up to 1980. The Fellowship is sponsored by the Terra Foundation for American Art.

The total funding for spring 2018 was also raised, allowing the Centre to award more fellowships than previously. In total, 157 applications were received, an increase on the previous year’s total, with 63 applications being successful. The Senior Fellowship attracted 9 applicants, of whom 3 were successful. The Mid-Career Fellowship attracted 17 applications, of which 7 were successful, and the Postdoctoral Fellowships received 28 applications with 11 being successful, more than double the number awarded in the previous year. The Junior

Fellowship attracted 13 applicants, of whom 8 were successful, and the Rome Fellowship received 4 applications, with 1 receiving the award. The new TerraPMC Fellowship did not attract many applications; 3 in total, with 1 duly receiving the fellowship. The Research Support Grant once more proved very popular and attracted 57 applications, of which 20 were successful. There were also 18 applications for Educational Programme Grants, of which 11 awards were made. The Conservation Fellowship for the academic year 2017–2018 of £25,000 was awarded by the Director of the Paul Mellon Centre to Dulwich Picture Gallery for conservation work on their Portrait of a Lady in Blue Holding a Flower by Peter Lely.