About the Award
These grants were developed as an outcome of the Society’s Research Programme Review in 2010.
More than 700 international field centres exist around the world, ranging from small independent field-camps to large long-term international facilities. For more information about international field centres, see the World Register of Field Centres.
Deadline: 30 November (each year)
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Please read the Field Centre Grants guidelines and email your application to grants@rgs.org.
Download application guidelines
Previous recipients
2015: Dr Iain Barr (University of East Anglia). Field research at Enciso National Park in Paraguay
This project aims to set up field research, stationed at Enciso National Park in Paraguay. To combine a field expedition to the dry Chaco forest with developing a research centre and further our knowledge of this remote frontier. Specifically this expedition aims to investigate the distribution a habitat use of several iconic and habitat endemic species, to explore the unexplored, remote dry Chaco field site at Camp Iris. Working with local partners the team will investigate the effects of deforestation in this region, by visiting and surveying forest fragments that are isolated within grazing pasture and those that are connected to forest.
2014: Dr Sarah Jewitt (University of Nottingham). Gender Perspectives on the Forest Rights Act in Odisha, India
Although gender is a longstanding theme in India's forest literature, the Forest Rights Act's (FRA) gendered impacts remain poorly understood. This research will investigate the gendered nature of FRA-based land rights allocation and its impacts on local forest use and governance.
2013: Dr Philip Hughes (University of Manchester). Late Pleistocene and Holocene Environmental Changes in the High Atlas, Morocco
This project will investigate evidence for environmental changes in the High Atlas over the past 20,000 years using geomorphological and lake/bog records. The team will map the glacial geomorphology of the central Toubkal Massif and collect samples for 10Be cosmogenic exposure dating. This will be combined with evidence from lake and bog records from nearby sites to provide new insights into environmental changes in this region. The project is based at, and in collaboration with the researchers of the Kasbah du Toubkal field centre, which is ideally positioned at the starting point of ascents to Toubkal (4167 m a.s.l.), the highest peak in North Africa.
2012: Dr Kevin White (University of Reading). Integrating new techniques for dune survey; extending the Gobabeb dune database
The project will integrate new techniques for dune surveying, in order to extend the Gobabeb dune database. There are few long time series of field data on sand dune morphology, but a repeatedly-surveyed dune near Gobabeb Field Research Centre has yielded important insights into dune morphodynamics. The team will work with and train Namibian field scientists.
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