British Academy: The UK's National Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences
Review, January – July 2000
This issue may be downloaded in PDF format (670kb).
The articles listed below in blue are also available separately in PDF or HTML format, as shown.
(Introductory pages)
Foreword (HTML)
About the British Academy
AGM 2000
Presidential Address (PDF)
The Fellowship
Medals and Prizes
EXTERNAL RELATIONS AND POLICY
External Relations
Graduate Studies Review (HTML)
LECTURES AND CONFERENCES
Report
The Legend of the Great Game (PDF)
Aksum: An African Civilisation (PDF)
Plato (PDF)
Wallace Stevens: Hypotheses and Contradictions (PDF)
ACADEMY RESEARCH PROJECTS
The John Foxe Project (PDF)
Corpus of Medieval Stained Glass (PDF)
PUBLICATIONS
Report
Educational Standards (PDF)
INTERNATIONAL
International Relations
Overseas Institutes and Sponsored Societies
RESEARCH AWARDS
Research Posts
Discovering Signorelli (PDF)
Witness Accuracy (PDF)
Review of Research Support (PDF)
Research Grants
Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music (PDF)
(Concluding pages)
From the Archive: One hundred years ago ...
Foreword
The British Academy aims to publish a regular account of its activities by means of its new biannual Review. Cumulatively, it fulfils the function of providing a conspectus of the Academy's activities previously covered by the Annual Report.
This issue of the Review covers events and activities that took place during the first six months of the year, up to and including the AGM which took place in early July 2000. During this period, a wide ranging series of lectures and conferences has taken place. In most cases, full publication will follow in the Proceedings of the British Academy, and a selection of extracts from some of the lectures is included in this issue.
As well as administering a flourishing series of events and publications, international activity and research grants, the Academy prides itself on its prestigious programme of research appointments, ranging from Professorships, Research Readerships, and Senior Research Fellowships, to the three-year Postdoctoral Fellowships for outstanding younger scholars. The holders of research appointments play an important part in the academic life of the Academy, and it is hoped that regular accounts of their achievements will feature in this Review. Recent winners of the senior competitions are announced in the current issue. And, as well as a report on this year's PDF competition and annual Symposium, it is a pleasure to include articles from two of the Academy's PDFs, Dr Henry writing on a Renaissance artist, and Dr Kebbell on the accuracy of witnesses.
The Academy Research Projects have formed a central core to the Academy's activities for many years, and in this issue there are reports from two very different types of Project: the self-contained work on John Foxe's Book of Martyrs; and the patient, long-term endeavour to record all the medieval stained glass in Britain, which is part of an international collaborative project under the auspices of the Union Académique Internationale. This issue also contains a report on the Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music, a project supported by the Academy, which will feed into an existing Academy Research Project, Early English Church Music.
This is the third issue of the Review, and the Academy will be pleased to receive comments and suggestions on how the content might be developed in the future.
Graduate Studies Review
Earlier this year, the Council of the Academy decided to instigate an enquiry into graduate studies in the UK.
The last decade has witnessed an unprecedented growth in the numbers of those entering higher education, which have almost doubled. It has also been a period of considerable change, including the creation of the 'new universities', and the introduction of means tested fees for students and the abolition of the maintenance grant.
There is a growing body of anecdotal and statistical evidence to support the view that the overall numbers of home-based postgraduate students are falling, and that many of the most able people, in some subjects especially, are turning away from graduate studies. Indeed, in certain disciplines and institutions, what used to be a predominantly British cohort of students has been replaced by a predominantly overseas one. Earlier this year, the Council of the Academy decided to establish a Committee of enquiry into graduate studies in the UK, in response to concerns that they were in decline.
The Graduate Studies Review Committee has been asked to examine and report on the current state of postgraduate studies in the humanities and social sciences. Accordingly, the Review Committee will gather statistical data on the composition of the postgraduate student popu-lation, analysing in particular the proportion of home-based students and the sources of their funding. Members will consider the present financial arrangements and any particular factors that act as a disincentive to postgraduate study; make relevant international comparisons; and consider the implications for the health of the various academic disciplines in the humanities and social sciences and the recruitment of the next generation of staff in UK universities.
The Review Committee held its first meeting on 30 June 2000, where it determined the structure and format of the exercise. The Academy's Sections will be consulted in January 2001 on the general outline of the Review and its chief subject-specific findings. Section Standing Committees will be consulted in advance this autumn.
It is anticipated that the Committee will meet three times and it is intended that it will present its report by June 2001.
The Graduate Studies Review Committee is chaired by Professor R.J. Bennett, and the other members are Professor J.S. Bell, Professor J.K. Davies, Professor H. Goldstein, Professor M.E. Hobson, Professor T. Ingold, Baroness O'Neill, Professor P.A. Slack and Professor K.F. Wallis.