The Foundation for the Sociology of Health and Illness

Scholars in the field of medical sociology, and various related disciplines including the sociology of healthcare, mental illness and science and technology studies, will no doubt already be aware of the Foundation for the Sociology of Health and Illness. Founded just under 20 years ago, the Foundation owns the rights to the journal Sociology of Health and Illness, published by Wiley, and uses the royalties from this title to support academic work in this field, including research, teaching and wider dissemination.

The Foundation is pleased to announce the deadlines for autumn 2018 and spring 2019 for all four of its funding schemes, as follows:

31 October 2018

31 March 2019

Since its inauguration in 1999, the Foundation has funded a wide range of activities, including doctoral studentships, workshops and seminars, and postdoctoral fellowships. Its current funding schemes include its Mildred Blaxter Fellowships—one-year postdoctoral posts, tenable at any UK university, designed to support scholars in the field of the sociology of health and illness immediately after their doctorate, as they seek to publish and obtain further postdoctoral funding—along with research grant application development awards, awards for one- or two-day symposia and workshops to foster dissemination and support developing areas of study, and postgraduate conference travel awards for doctoral and Master’s students looking to present their sociological work at overseas conferences. The maximum award for the conference travel scheme was increased in 2017 year from £600 to £800.

Over the 2018/2019 period, the Foundation plans to fund two Mildred Blaxter Fellowships (one at each round), six symposia/workshops, four research grant development awards, and 16 postgraduate international conference travel awards. Applications will be reviewed by panels drawn from the Foundation trustees and awarded competitively on merit.

The high quality of scholarship in the field is reflected in the work of the academics the Foundation has supported. Recent recipients of the Mildred Blaxter fellowships, for example, have published extensively, and in some of the most highly regarded journals in the field—such as Theory, Culture and Society, Social Science & Medicine and of course Sociology of Health and Illness itself—as well as published monographs based on their doctoral research.

In addition to open competitive grants, the Foundation also supports the editors of Sociology of Health and Illness, ensuring that it remains the outlet of choice for academics in the field, and enabling the editorial team to undertake new ventures—for example, its growing social media presence. The Foundation also works closely with other groups in the field, including most notably the British Sociological Association’s Medical Sociology Study Group, which will hold its 50^th annual conference this year. The Foundation sponsors a prestigious book prize for the best research-based monograph published in the field, which is awarded at the Group’s conference each year, and has used its funds to support other activities led by the Group in previous years.

More information on the Foundation can be found on its website. Upcoming deadlines for its competitions, as well as details of symposia and workshops funded by the Foundation are included on the website, via the Foundation’s Twitter account, and on the medical sociology JISCmail group.