New research projects to assess long-term governance implications of Brexit across the UK

13 Dec 2018 12:48 PM

ESRC is announcing £3.5 million of funding for projects researching long-term implications for governance after Brexit. These projects will run for between one and three years and generally commence in December 2018.

Brexit will have an impact on a wide range of issues in the UK including and not limited to, the UK's constitutional arrangements; public service provision and delivery and economic performance across different places and sectors such as agriculture industries. These projects seek to explore how these issues play out across different localities, regions, and nations in the UK.

The call is split into two separate types of project. Innovation projects were encouraged to demonstrate conceptual and theoretical innovation and the development of novel research methods. The larger grants incorporate projects that will work across multiple themes and locations along with making use of ethnographic or comparative methods. 

The Governance after Brexit programme will work closely with the ESRC's UK in a Changing Europe initiative to maximise the wider impact of its distinctive long term research perspective on Brexit. UK in a Changing Europe provides authoritative, non-partisan and high-quality research into the moving and complicated relationship between the UK and the EU.

Professor Daniel Wincott, Cardiff University, ESRC Leadership Coordinator for Governance after Brexit said: "Governance after Brexit is a new programme of ESRC-funded research that sets Brexit in a long term perspective. Today, considerable uncertainty attaches to Brexit. If the UK is to make the best of its relationships with the EU and the wider world we need to look beyond the febrility and contentiousness that mark the current debate. Social scientists are uniquely placed to interrogate Brexit's deep causes and consequences. The Governance after Brexit programme projects will develop fundamental research to generate new evidence and understanding. Each has a clear strategy to use its research to impact on the economy and society, politics and policy."

The full list of awards are as follows:

Larger grants

Innovation grants

Notes for editors

  1.  The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) is part of UK Research and Innovation, a non-departmental public body funded by a grant-in-aid from the UK government.
  2. The ESRC is the UK’s largest funder of research on the social and economic questions facing us today. It supports the development and training of the UK’s future social scientists and also funds major studies that provide the infrastructure for research. ESRC-funded research informs policymakers and practitioners and helps make businesses, voluntary bodies and other organisations more effective.
  3. UK Research and Innovation is a new body which works in partnership with universities, research organisations, businesses, charities, and government to create the best possible environment for research and innovation to flourish. We aim to maximise the contribution of each of our component parts, working individually and collectively. We work with our many partners to benefit everyone through knowledge, talent and ideas.
  4. Operating across the whole of the UK with a combined budget of more than £6 billion, UK Research and Innovation brings together the seven research councils, Innovate UK and a new organisation, Research England.