Institute of Advanced Study (Durham)

The Institute of Advanced Study (IAS) is a research centre of Durham University

Durham University

The University of Durham, commonly known as Durham University, is a university in Durham, England. It was founded by Act of Parliament in 1832 and granted a Royal Charter in 1837...

. The IAS has been set up to bring researchers from across the world to collaborate on cutting edge research. The IAS was set up to mark Durham's 175th anniversary and will be housed in the Grade I listed Bishop Cosins Hall on Palace Green

Palace Green

Palace Green is a small area of grass in the centre of Durham, England, flanked by Durham Cathedral and Durham Castle. The Cathedral and Castle together form a UNESCO World Heritage Site....

, Durham

Durham

Durham is a city in north east England. It is within the County Durham local government district, and is the county town of the larger ceremonial county...

. The Institute accepted its first fellows

Fellows

Fellows or Fellowes is a surname and may refer to:People* Ailwyn Fellowes, 1st Baron Ailwyn , British businessman, farmer and politician* Carol Fellowes, 4th Baron Ailwyn , British peer...

in January 2006.

Facilities and Themes

Fellows of the IAS are able to access all the facilities of the University and work in one of the University's 27 departments alongside existing scholars. Fellows are also involved with the colleges by giving and attending various lectures, seminars and formal dinners

Formal (university)

Formal Hall or Formal Meal is the meal held at some of the oldest , universities in the United Kingdom at which students dress in formal attire and often gowns to dine...

within the IAS, colleges and departments. The fellows have a dedicated office building, access to the four university libraries, two museums and botanic garden as well as the university's laboratories and research centres.

The research of the IAS is based around research themes across the Sciences, Social Sciences

Social sciences

Social science is the field of study concerned with society. "Social science" is commonly used as an umbrella term to refer to a plurality of fields outside of the natural sciences usually exclusive of the administrative or managerial sciences...

and Humanities

Humanities

The humanities are academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences....

. The theme of the IAS's research is published a year in advance. A scoping exercise in late 2005 set out the core themes across the three academic strands with the inaugural theme in 2006-2007 being the "Legacy of Darwin

Charles Darwin

Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...

". Subsequent research themes have been Modelling in 2007-08, 'Being Human' in 2008-09 and Water in 2009-2010.

Fellowships

The IAS offers fellow

Fellow

A fellow in the broadest sense is someone who is an equal or a comrade. The term fellow is also used to describe a person, particularly by those in the upper social classes. It is most often used in an academic context: a fellow is often part of an elite group of learned people who are awarded...

ships to UK and international scholars with two different types of fellowships: distinguished and fast-track.

Distinguished Fellowships will be offered to members of Academia who have an international standing and a history of high quality research in their field of study.
Fast track Fellowships will be offered to scholars who are emerging as forerunners in their chosen discipline but who as yet are not of a high international repute.

The Fellowships will each last three months, with ten award each semester. The first semester runs from January to June and the second from September to December.

Accommodation for the fellows will be provide by some of the university's colleges. In addition to the fellowships offered by the IAS fellowships of approx. a term are offered by the colleges, with the potential to become an IAS affiliate:

Collingwood College
Collingwood College, Durham
Collingwood College is a college of Durham University in England. It is the second largest of Durham's undergraduate colleges. Founded in 1972 as the first purpose-built, mixed-sex college in Durham, it is named after the mathematician Sir Edward Collingwood , who was also for a time Chair of the...

- Collingwood College Fellowships.
Grey College
Grey College, Durham
Grey College is a college of the University of Durham in England. Although it was originally planned that the college was to be named Oliver Cromwell College, this proved too controversial and it was instead named after Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, who was Prime Minister at the time of the...

- Sidney Holgate Research Fellowship, Alan Richards and Isobel Holgate Mathematics Fellowship, Glaxo Smith Kline Fellowship, Dickinson Dees Fellowship, Best Fellowship in Public Understanding of Science and the Winifred Jean Stubbs Fellowship.
Hatfield College
Hatfield College
Hatfield College is a college of the University of Durham in England. Founded in 1846 by the Rev. David Melville, it is the second oldest of Durham's colleges, and was originally called Bishop Hatfield's Hall...

- Visiting Research Fellowship.
St Aidan's College
St Aidan's College
St Aidan's College is a college of the University of Durham in England. Founded in 1947 as St Aidan's Society, but able to trace its roots back to the end of the 19th century, the college is named for St Aidan of Lindisfarne.-History:...

- St Aidan's College Fellowship
St Chad's College
St Chad's College
St Chad's College is a college of the University of Durham in England. One of the smallest of Durham's colleges in terms of student numbers , it has the largest staff, the most extensive college library facilities, and consistently the highest academic results in Durham...

- The Traidcraft Fellowship, Senior Research Fellowships, Durham Cathedral Artist in Residence and The Alan Richardson .Fellowship
St John’s College
St John's College, Durham
St John's College is a college of the University of Durham, United Kingdom. It is one of only two 'Recognised Colleges' of the University, the other being St Chad's. This means that it is financially and constitutionally independent of the University and has a greater degree of administrative...

- St John's College Fellowship.
St Mary’s College
St Mary's College, Durham
St Mary's College is a college of the University of Durham in England. Following the grant of a supplemental charter in 1895 allowing women to receive degrees of the university, St Mary's was founded as the Women's Hostel in 1899, adopting its present name in May 1920...
Trevelyan College
Trevelyan College
Trevelyan College, often abbreviated to Trevs, is a college of the University of Durham in North Eastern England. Founded in 1966, the college takes its name from social historian George Macaulay Trevelyan, Chancellor of the University from 1950 to 1957. Originally an all-female college , the...

- The Trevelyan Fellowship and the Sir William Luce Fellowship in Middle Eastern Studies.
University College
University College, Durham
University College, commonly known as Castle, is a college of the University of Durham in England. Centred around Durham Castle on Palace Green, it was founded in 1832 and is the oldest of Durham's colleges. As with all of Durham's colleges, it is, independently of the University, a listed body...

- Leonard Slater Fellowship and the Pemberton Fellowship.
Van Mildert College
Van Mildert College
Van Mildert College, commonly known as Mildert, is a college of the University of Durham in England. Founded in 1965, it takes its name from William Van Mildert, Prince-Bishop of Durham from 1826 to 1836 and a leading figure in the University's 1832 foundation.Van Mildert College occupies grounds...

- Arthur Prowse Fellowship & the Arnold Bradshaw Fellowship.

Partial List of Past & Current Fellows

Prof Jane Buikstra 2006/7
Prof Michael Ralph Fellows 2006/7
Prof James Moore
James Moore (biographer)
James Richard Moore, historian of science at the Open University and the University of Cambridge and visiting scholar at Harvard University, is noted as the author of several biographies of Charles Darwin...

2006/7
Prof John Hedley Brooke
John Hedley Brooke
John Hedley Brooke is a British Historian of Science specialising in the relationship between science and religion.-Biography:...

2006/7
Prof John Dupré
John Dupré
John Dupré is a professional philosopher of science. He is the director of the ESRC Centre for Genomics in Society and professor of philosophy at the University of Exeter. Dupré was educated at the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge and taught at Oxford, Stanford University and...

2006/7
Prof Nancy Cartwright
Nancy Cartwright (philosopher)
Nancy Cartwright FBA is a professor of philosophy at the London School of Economics and the University of California at San Diego, and a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship...

2007/8
Prof Donald A. MacKenzie 2007/8
Prof David C. Stark
David C. Stark
David C. Stark is Arthur Lehman Professor of Sociology and International Affairs at Columbia University where he serves as chair of the sociology department and directs the Center on Organizational Innovation. He is an External Faculty Member of the Santa Fe Institute.-Biography:He received a B.A....

2007/8
Prof Tom Nairn
Tom Nairn
Tom Nairn Born in born 2 June 1932 in Freuchie, Fife) is a Scottish theorist of nationalism.Prof Tom Nairn is a Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Government and International Affairs at Durham University...

2008/09
Prof Adi Ophir
Adi Ophir
Adi Ophir is an Israeli philosopher.Professor Ophir teaches philosophy at the Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas at Tel Aviv University...

2008/09

Directorates

The IAS is run by four directors nominally appointed by the Vice-Chancellor of the university. The directors are responsible for the academic calendar and research events of the IAS. Three of the directors are responsible for maintaining links with the IAS and are thus named after the relevant faculty.
The present directors are:

Professor Ash Amin
Ash Amin
Ash Amin FBA AcSS is a professor of geography at the University of Cambridge and formally at Durham University, UK. He graduated from the University of Reading in 1979 with a first-class degree in Italian Studies and then gained a PhD in geography from Reading in 1986...

- Executive Director
Professor Michael O'Neill - Director for the Arts and Humanities
Professor Susan J Smith - Director for the Social Sciences
Professor Colin Bain - Director for the Sciences

Advisory Council

The advisory council works alongside the directors and meets once a year to develop the academic calendar of the IAS and aid in its promotion through members acting as ambassadors to the IAS and advising on new research themes. The present members of the council are

Professor Sir Kenneth Calman
Kenneth Calman
Sir Kenneth Charles Calman, KCB, DL, FRSE is a Scottish cancer researcher and former Chief Medical Officer of Scotland, and then England. He was Warden and Vice-Chancellor of Durham University from 1998 to 2006, before becoming Chancellor of the University of Glasgow. He has held the position of...
Dr Bill Bryson
Bill Bryson
William McGuire "Bill" Bryson, OBE, is a best-selling American author of humorous books on travel, as well as books on the English language and on science. Born an American, he was a resident of Britain for most of his adult life before moving back to the US in 1995...
Professor Dame Gillian Beer
Professor Gillian Clark
Professor Julia Goodfellow
Professor Martin Daunton
Professor Sally Macintyre
Professor Nikolas Rose
Professor Bhikhu, Lord Parekh
Bhikhu Parekh, Baron Parekh
Bhikhu Chotalal Parekh, Baron Parekh is a political theorist.-Biography:Parekh was born in the village of Amalsad in the province of Gujarat, India; his father was a goldsmith with a basic education. Parekh was admitted to the University of Bombay at the age of 15, and earned a Bachelor's degree...
Dr Matt Ridley
Matt Ridley
Matthew White Ridley, FRSL, FMedSci is an English journalist, writer, biologist, and businessman.-Career:...
Professor Malcolm Schofield
Professor Peter Smith
Mr Peter Watson
Peter Watson (business writer)
Peter Watson is an intellectual historian and former journalist, now perhaps best known for his work in the history of ideas.He was educated at the universities of Durham, London, and Rome. Watson was deputy editor of New Society, and was for four years a member of the Insight team of The Sunday...

External links