Applicants are now able to identify relevant public and sector engagement activities in the classification of proposals. The qualifiers identify focus, other than Research Area, (disciplinary or subject area) and are grouped under the following headings:
- Public engagement methodology
- Public engagement audience
- Project engagement by sector
You may select as many qualifiers as are relevant to your proposal. This will enable us to gain a more detailed understanding of your research proposal and associated engagement activities.
The list below highlights the research areas that fall within ESRC's remit by subject (bold) and then by topic (bulleted).
Demography and human geography
- Demography
- Human geography
Development studies
- Area and development studies
Economics
- Economics
History*
- Economic and social history
Education
- Education
Environmental planning
- Environmental planning
Linguistics*
- Applied linguistics
- Comput./corpus linguistics
- Phonetics
- Psycholinguistics
- Sociolinguistics
- Languages and linguistics
- Linguistics (general)**
Management and business studies*
- Management and business studies
Political science and international studies*
- International studies and relations
- Political science
Psychology*
- Psychology
Social anthropology
- Social anthropology
Social policy
- Social policy
Social work
- Social work
Sociology*
- Science and technology studies
- Sociology
Law and legal studies*
- Socio legal studies
Tools, technologies and methods*
- Social statistics, methods and computing
* These subject choices include other research topic areas that fall outside of ESRC's remit. It is essential that your primary research topic area is in the social sciences. We strongly encourage inter/multidisciplinary working both within and beyond the social sciences, as long as at least 50 per cent of the proposed programme of research is within ESRC's remit.
** Linguistics (general)- this option should only be selected as the primary research topic area in cases where at least 50 per cent of the proposed programme of research is within ESRC's remit, but does not necessarily fall exclusively in one of the other Linguistic research areas. In all cases other topic areas can be chosen as secondary research areas.
The full list of research areas is available through the Research Councils' Joint Electronic Submissions system (Je-S).
If you are unsure whether your research is suitable for ESRC funding please refer to the UK Research and Innovation areas of research guidance (external website).
If you require further assistance please email esrcremit@esrc.ukri.org