The Mitchell Institute is pleased to announce the Sabbatical Fellowship Scheme for 2025-26.

This Scheme is open to all Queen’s University Belfast academic staff who have already been awarded Sabbatical Leave by their School during 2025-26.

For the duration of their Fellowship – up to one semester – each of the three successful applicants will be provided with office space in the Institute; will receive £4,000 to support research activities (as agreed with the Institute Director); and will present their research in a Mitchell Institute Lecture or Workshop during their period at the Institute. 

 

How to apply

 Applications should include:

• A one-page outline of the proposed research to be conducted during the applicant’s semester at the Institute (in line with what has been proposed to the applicant’s School). This must include:
  • The case for its originality and importance
  • Details of the work to be produced (e.g. planned publications)
  • Clarification of alignment between the proposed research and work of the Institute
  • Details of the applicant’s involvement with the Institute to date (if any)
• A CV of no more than 2 pages
• An indication of which Semester in 2025-26 the applicant would like to spend at the Institute
• Confirmation that the applicant has been awarded Sabbatical Leave from their School prior to the application deadline

Applications marked Sabbatical Fellowship Scheme 2025-26 should be emailed to the Mitchell Institute at mitchell.institute@qub.ac.uk by 25 April 2025.

Decisions will be announced by 30 May 2025.

 

Sabbatical Fellows 2024-25

The Sabbatical Fellows for 2024-25 were Dr Síobhra Aiken, Dr Eithne Dowds and Dr Keira Williams.  They found the experience very beneficial, especially the financial support and dedicated office space and support at the Institute.

 

Dr Síobhra Aiken

Dr Síobhra Aiken, Senior Lecturer in Irish & Celtic Studies in the School of Arts, English and Languages.  Síobhra is working on a book project on the efforts of a group of Kerry-born immigrants in the industrial city of Springfield, Massachusetts to sustain a utopian, Irish-speaking enclave in their adopted home during the 1890s through to the 1930s.

Reflecting on her tenure, Síobhra said:

“I felt like I was spoiled rotten during my Mitchell Institute Sabbatical Fellowship.  I was overwhelmed by the support and friendship of the Institute’s staff and students, and loved being able to learn about the exciting work happening at the Institute over cups of tea in the kitchen.

My time at the Mitchell Institute allowed me to develop my research project, which interrogates the utopian efforts of a group of Kerry-born immigrants in the industrial city of Springfield, Massachusetts to sustain an Irish-speaking enclave in their adopted home from the 1890s to the 1930s.

In addition to allowing me to travel to the US for research, my Sabbatical Fellowship at the Institute helped me to rethink my research project and consider how this microstudy is not only relevant in an Irish-language studies context but also provides a springboard to probe larger questions about migration and linguistic displacement, about assimilation and community cohesion, and about the language rights of minority and migrant groups.

Though my Sabbatical Fellowship has officially ended, I look forward to further developing my connections with the Institute over the coming months.  In particular, I am very grateful to the Institute for supporting a seminar on representations of gender-based violence in contemporary literature in Irish, planned to mark International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on 25 November 2025.” 

 

Dr Eithne Dowds 

 

Dr Eithne Dowds, Senior Lecturer in the School of Law.  Eithne is working on developing rape law reform and sexual consent through the completion of one sole-authored paper provisionally entitled ‘Stereotypes, Offence Differentiation and Defendant Culpability in Rape Reform: Reflections on a Negligent Rape Offence’, as well as drafting a proposal for a monograph entitled 'Sexual Consent and Legal Reform: towards a communicative responsibility approach'.

Reflecting on her Sabbatical Fellowship, Eithne said:

“My time as a Sabbatical Fellow at the Mitchell Institute in Semester One 2024/25 provided a valuable opportunity to develop my scholarship and build connections with staff at the Institute.  During this time, I worked on completing my draft article, ‘Challenging the Role of Good Character Evidence in Rape Trials: Monsters, Myths and Mitigation’.  I was also able to make use of the Fellows’ Room to host a collaborative lunch with key stakeholders in the sexual violence sector in Northern Ireland around a proposed project.  This room provided a lovely space for meeting with colleagues from outside the university.

As my Sabbatical runs over two semesters, the flexibility of the Sabbatical Fellowship, in terms of timings for the research workshops and use of the supporting funding, has been really beneficial to me.  I was able to forward plan - and resist the temptation to cram everything into one semester - by setting a date for my research workshop in semester two.  This allowed me to work on my current projects while also formulating ideas for my book project, 'Sexual Consent and Legal Reform: towards a communicative responsibility approach’, to be tested and teased out during the research workshop.  I was able to use my Sabbatical Fellowship Funding to travel to the University of Limerick for a conference as an invited speaker and some of the funding will go towards the costs associated with a conference I am planning for the end of semester two 2024/25.

The administrative support provided by the Institute was excellent.  As a Sabbatical Fellow I felt very much integrated into the life of the Institute, with regular check-ins and inclusion in the monthly Newsletter, allowing me to keep up-to-date with the work of colleagues in the institute and to share my activities to a wide audience.

In sum, the Mitchell Institute Sabbatical Fellowship has been a brilliant experience, and I hope to continue my relationship with Institute and remain a part of the wonderful community it has created.”

 

Dr Keira Williams 

 

Dr Keira Williams is a Senior Lecturer in the School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics and Mitchell Institute Fellow: Religion, Arts and Peacebuilding.  Keira spent several weeks in the local newspaper archives on the Carolina coast as part of the research for her next book, Mighty Man and the Southern Beats.  This book will tell the story of how Black cultural, social, and political resistance merged with white youthful rejection of Cold War conformity, using Charlie’s Place as a case study of an openly defiant community that prefigured the more famous rebellions of the following generation.

Reflecting on her experience, Keira said:

“I was grateful to receive a Sabbatical Fellowship from the Mitchell Institute in the fall of 2024.  During my time as a Sabbatical Fellow, I focused on the research for my fourth book.  This book, Mighty Man and the Southern Beats, is about a 1950 Ku Klux Klan attack on Charlie’s Place, a Black nightclub on the Carolina coast that hosted a youthful counterculture centered around early rock and roll.  In the book, I use Charlie’s Place as a case study of local race, gender, and class politics at the dawn of the civil rights era in the Deep South.  The Mitchell Sabbatical Fellowship funded a trip to the archives in Conway, South Carolina, and another upcoming visit to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where I will be able to complete the primary research for this project.

Mitchell Institute Sabbatical Fellows have access to a warm, welcoming, and quiet environment, including personal office space in the middle of Queen’s campus.  In addition to the many lectures, seminars, and workshops, the Mitchell Institute also provided the support to organize my own workshop where I will, with the help of other Institute Fellows and interdisciplinary colleagues from Queen’s, work through some of the more personal questions involved in writing history that is very close to home.”