The Malone Society warmly invites unaffiliated and precariously employed postdoctoral scholars to apply for the Leah Scragg Travel Bursary. As part of the Society’s mission to support bibliographical scholarship and scholarship on non-canonical British drama up to 1642, we are introducing conference travel bursaries of up to £1000 each to support two unaffiliated scholars working in these areas to travel to international conferences. The bursary is limited to postdoctoral scholars who are up to 8 years out from their viva and are either unaffiliated or ineligible for institutional funding.
Named for The Malone Society’s late president, Leah Scragg, the bursary recognises Leah Scragg’s extraordinary contribution to The Malone Society, and the significance of her scholarship for subsequent generations of scholars undertaking editorial and critical work in British drama up to 1642. For more information on The Malone Society’s mission, please see here.
Applicants must be current members of The Malone Society at the time of application. If you are not currently a member, you can sign up for membership here.
Applications open 1 July 2026 and close 11:59pm BST 30 September 2026. Applicants, both successful and unsuccessful, will be informed of the outcome in early November 2026.
Award
The committee will be awarding two bursaries, consisting of the following:
- Up to £1000 conference bursary.
- Free Malone membership for the year following the application year.
- A selection of 5 volumes from the back catalogue.
- Contribution of a blog post to The Malone Society website.
- Presentation of their conference paper at the Malone Society Annual Conference.
Eligibility
At the point of application, applicants must:
- Have passed their viva or equivalent PhD examination.
- Be within 8 years of their viva.
- Have an active membership with The Malone Society.
- Not have access to institutional funding through a substantive teaching or research position.
Application
Applications (written in English) should consist of:
- The title of the paper to be presented.
- An abstract of the paper (max. 250 words).
- A paragraph on how the paper relates to The Malone Society’s mission (max. 250 words).
- A short, research focussed CV (max. 2 pages, size 12 font Times New Roman).
- A detailed breakdown of costs, with evidence e.g. screenshots of flights; hotels; subsistence.
- Link to conference website.
Applications can be submitted through this link.
For more information, please see our Terms and Conditions and Frequently Asked Questions documents. Informal enquiries or any general or practical queries can be directed to our Membership Secretary, Dr Lucy Holehouse, at lucy.holehouse@rhul.ac.uk. Please include ‘Leah Scragg Travel Bursary’ in the subject line of your email.