Eccles Institute Visiting Fellowships: applications now open

The Eccles Institute builds, curates and preserves the Americas and Oceania collection at the British Library. It champions knowledge and understanding of these regions through a rich programme of fellowships and awards, cultural events, research training, guides to the collections and programmes for schools.

The Eccles Institute Visiting Fellowship offers funding for researchers working on the Americas across the arts, humanities and social sciences, to spend some time with the British Library’s collections in London.

Visiting Fellows will join an exciting community of writers, thinkers and makers working across academic and creative disciplines and boundaries. We expect Fellows to be largely self-directed and independent in conducting their research in the Library’s Reading Rooms, but there will be opportunities to access enhanced curatorial support where necessary, and to present ideas at workshops and events.

Fellows are given financial stipends intended to support at least 3 weeks research at the British Library in London.

The amount of funding depends on where the Fellow is travelling from. The current stipends levels are:

• The UK (Within the M25): £1,000
• The UK (Beyond the M25): £2,000
• Europe (incl. Eire)*: £2,500
• Rest of World: £3,000.

Researchers of Latin America are also invited to be considered for a joint-fellowship with the Society for Latin American Studies (SLAS) and the Bulletin of Latin American Research (BLAR). The SLAS/BLAR Visiting Fellow will be invited to publish an article informed by this research in BLAR.

Fellows are expected to make their own travel and accommodation arrangements. We also cannot arrange for or guarantee any necessary travel documentation to the UK (such as visas), but we will, where possible and appropriate, provide written documentation to support Fellows’ visa applications.

We do not currently have a distance or remote-working version of the Fellowship available, but we hope to develop this option in the coming the years.

Anyone over the age of 18 years old, from anywhere in the world, can apply. If you are interested in the Americas, we are interested in you.

The Eccles Institute Visiting Fellowship supports innovative and exciting use of the British Library’s collections to ask questions about the past, present and future of the Americas.

This could be original academic research leading to a doctoral dissertation, journal article or scholarly monograph. It could also be part of the research and development for new creative work in fiction, poetry, music, dance, theatre, art, design, and everything in between.

Although the Eccles Institute curates, researches and promotes the British Library’s Americas and Oceania collections, only projects that foreground the Americas or American experiences are currently eligible for support through the Visiting Fellowship programme. We plan to expand the scope of the programme to include Oceania over the coming years.

This year we are particularly excited to support projects that align with one of the four themes. However, we will also support a number of projects that do not fall under these themes under the ‘open submission’ category, and you will not stand a lesser chance of success if you apply under this category.

Applications are now open and can be submitted via this application form. The deadline is 17.00 GMT on Friday 19 December 2025.

Following the cyber-attack on the British Library in October 2023, we are still working to restore full functionality of our catalogues and retrieval systems. We are therefore asking that applicants give as much detail as possible about what they would like to consult if they are successful, as well as telling us about their wider project and plans for their work.

Apart from being asked to answer some questions about their disciplinary background and training, applicants will be asked to complete four sections about their project on the application form:

• A description of the topic or question they would like to research during their Eccles Institute Visiting Fellowship at the British Library (400 words)
• An indication of which kinds of material they would like to focus on during your Fellowship (e.g. newspapers, books, periodicals, government documents, manuscripts, sound recordings etc.)
• A list of at least five representative collection items, with Reference Numbers. Please see below for more information about searching the British Library’s collections
• A description of what applicants hope to learn through using these and other research resources of the British Library (300 words)
• An account of what you hope to do with your research. This might include plans for a publication, a performance or exhibition, or a chapter in a thesis. We are particularly interested in suggestions for how your work might inspire non-specialists or non-experts to learn more about the Americas and use the British Library (300 words).

Only applications made using the online form will be accepted, and we will not look at any late submissions. We do not require references or samples of work for the application.

Following the cyber-attack on the British Library in October 2023, the library’s research services have been significantly disrupted, but most areas of the collection can be searched using our online interim catalogues. 

Find out what is currently available and about our collections.

Applicants are also strongly encouraged to look at the latest tips and advice from the British Library about how best to use the interim catalogues.

Anyone can search our online catalogues, but if you intend to consult collection items in Reading Rooms you’ll need to register for a free Reader Pass.

Please note that we’ll be launching a new main catalogue on Monday 8 December, and access and ordering will be suspended from Monday 1 – Sunday 7 December to ensure the safety of our collections. You can still search the catalogues during this time, and updated guidance on searching the new catalogue will be available when it launches.

There are a range of research guides, bibliographies and handbooks that are available online and offer insight into the British Library’s holdings, including:

• Eccles bibliographies and the Americas and Oceania blog
• Information on our sound collections, including how to search the Sound and Moving Image (SAMI) Catalogue and the process to request advanced listing appointments.

In addition to the catalogues and LibGuides available online, the following printed bibliographies and guides may be helpful in researching the Americas collections. Many of these can be consulted online though platforms including Archive.org, and all can be consulted at the British Library or other research libraries:

• C.M. Andrews and F.G. Davenport, Guide to the Manuscript Materials for the history of the United States to 1783, in the British Museum, in minor London archives, and in the libraries of Oxford and Cambridge (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution, 1908). Available at BL Open Shelf: Social Sciences Reading Room (OPL 973.0094) or online
• Valerie Bloomfield, Resources for Canadian studies in Britain with some reference to Europe (2nd ed., London: British Association for Canadian Studies, 1983). Available at BL Open Shelf: Humanities 1 Reading Room (HLR 026.971) or online
• Jerome S. Handler, A Guide to Source Materials for the Study of Barbados History, 1627-1834 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1971). Available at BL Shelfmark: 2764.b.5 or online
• Jerome S. Handler, Supplement to A Guide to Source Materials for the Study of Barbados History, 1627-1834 (Providence, R.I: John Carter Brown Library and Barbados Museum and Historical Society, 1991). BL Shelfmark: YD.2005.a.6298
• K. E. Ingram, Manuscript Sources for the History of the West Indies: With Special Reference to Jamaica in the National Library of Jamaica and Supplementary Sources in the West Indies, North America, the United Kingdom and Elsewhere (Barbados: University of the West Indies Press, 2000). BL Open Shelf: Social Sciences Reading Room (OPL 980.0074)
• K. E. Ingram, Sources of Jamaican History, 1655-1838: A Bibliographical Survey with Particular Reference to Manuscript Sources (Zug: Inter Documentation Co., 1976). BL Open Shelf: Social Sciences Reading Room (OPL 972.9203)
• K. E. Ingram, Sources for West Indian Studies: A Supplementary Listing, with Particular Reference to Manuscript Sources (Zug: Inter Documentation Co., 1983). BL Open Shelf: Humanities 1 Reading Room (HLR 972.9)
• William J. Koenig and S. L Mayer, European Manuscript Sources of the American Revolution (London: Bowker, 1974). BL Open Shelf: Manuscripts Reading Room (MSS 973.3)
• Gregory Palmer, A Guide to Americana: The American Collections in the British Library (London: K. G. Saur, c.1988). BL Open Shelf: Humanities 1 Reading Room (HLR 026.973)
• R.C. Simmons, British Imprints Relating to North America 1621-1760: An Annotated Checklist (London: The British Library, 1996). BL Open Shelf: Rare Books and Music Reading Room (RAR 970)
• P. Snow, The United States: A Guide to Library Holdings in the UK (London: British Library, 1982). BL Open Shelf: Humanities 1 Reading Room (HLR 026.973)
• George F. Tyson and Carolyn Tyson, Preliminary Report on Manuscript Materials in British Archives Relating to the American Revolution in the West Indian Islands (Millwood, N.Y: Kraus Reprint Co., 1978). BL Shelfmark: 79/30791
• Peter Walne, A Guide to Manuscript Sources for the History of Latin America and the Caribbean in the British Isles (London: Oxford University Press in collaboration with the Institute of Latin American Studies, University of London, 1973). Available at BL Open Shelf: Manuscripts Reading Room (MSS 980) and Humanities 1 Reading Room (HLR 980) or online.