Viking Society Research Support Fund

The Margaret Orme Prize

Research Support Fund

Aims

The purpose of the fund is to assist in the development of the study of the literature, history, language, archaeology of early and medieval Scandinavia (including its relationship with other areas and cultures).

The fund is administered by a committee which is responsible to the Council of the Society (see below), and which will consider written applications made in the appropriate form.

Applications and Selection

The Council of the Viking Society expects and encourages a wide variety of applications to the fund. Along the guidelines it will use in evaluating applications will be the following:

1. It will seek to support those projects which promise the greatest benefit as a contribution to scholarship, the personal scholarly development of the applicant(s), and/or the expected academic benefit to any group(s) to be visited by the applicant(s).
2. Proposals should be practicable within the time scale envisaged by the applicant(s), and financial estimates should be realistic. Applicants should demonstrate, where possible, that they have explored and followed up other possible sources of funding. The committee may offer a grant less than the full sum requested.
3. Where more than one application is perceived to have merit, preference may be shown to those whose financial need is greatest. This proviso will not automatically disadvantage applicants who have part-funding from elsewhere.
4. Applicants should normally be members of the Viking Society; in special circumstances, non-members may be considered.
5. Students may apply for grants for specific purposes, but the fund will not be used to provide scholarships for the total or partial support of students in their work for any level of degree.
6. Where more than one application is received from members of a single institution, the relevant senior member(s) of that institution may be invited to indicate an order of priority between them. The committee will take such advice into account, but will not be obliged to follow any such order of priority in the awards it makes.
7. The age, creed, nationality, political opinions, race, sex or sexual orientation of any applicant will not be used by the committee as grounds for discriminating either in favour of or against his or her application.

Guidance to applicants

1. Applications, following the general pro forma below, should be made in writing to:

The President,
Viking Society for Northern Research,
c/o Department of Scandinavian Studies,
University College London,
Gower Street,
London WC1E 6BT

2. Applications may be made at any time, but the committee will normally meet three times a year, and will normally consider only applications received in due form by 1st February, 1st May, and 1st October.

3. A final report will be required from all recipients of grants, together with an account of expenditure with appropriate receipts. The report and account of expenditure, with appropriate receipts where possible, should be sent to the President of the Viking Society at the address above within three months of incurring the expenditure for which the grant was awarded. If the project is not complete when this report is submitted, a further report should be submitted on completion of the project. The President will present all reports to the Council of the Society and forward all accounts of expenditure to the Treasurer.

4. It is expected that, except by prior agreement, any publishable work resulting from activities funded by the Society in this way will normally be offered first to the Society for publication, although there will be no obligation on the Society's part to publish it. Wherever it is published, it should contain an acknowledgment of the support provided by the Society.

The Committee

The Committee, which is a sub-committee of the Council, has three members: the President and two other members of the Society (who need not be members of the Council). Members of the committee are elected by the Council, subject to confirmation by the Society at its AGM.

The President serves on the committee ex officio, and therefore for two years. The other members serve for four years, one being replaced at the mid-point of each President's term of office. Retiring members of the committee will not normally be responsible for a consecutive term.

If any elected member of the committee becomes unavailable during his or her period of office, the Council may co-opt a replacement for all or part of the remainder of the term of office of the member being replaced.

Funds

The funds available for disbursement by the committee are determined by the Council; the normal practice is for a variable annual grant to be considered and agreed at the summer meeting of the Council, to run for the following academic year.

The fund may be suspended by the Council or abolished by an AGM or EGM of the Society.

Application Form for Research Support Fund (to print out)

The Margaret Orme Prize

The Society has established an annual award prize, to be known as the Margaret Orme Prize, to be awarded to an undergraduate or new graduate student of Universities and Colleges in the United Kingdom and Eire (other than Oxford and University College London) who has distinguished himself or herself in fields of study appropriate to the Society's interests. The Prize will consist of free Membership of the Society for five years from the October following the date of the award, with an immediate gift of £50 (a sum which will be reviewed from time to time) and of such publications of the Society (excluding back-numbers of the Saga-Book before Volume XX) as the prize-winner may care to select from those available in print.

A nomination for the award should be sent either by the teacher responsible for Norse studies or by the Head of Department to the Joint Honorary Secretaries of the Society at the address below on or before 1 August in the relevant year. The nomination should be accompanied by a statement of the particular grounds for the recommendation and, if desired, by not more than one piece of written work by the student in question. Any information about examination marks or results will, of course, be treated with the strictest confidence. Adjudication by a panel appointed by the Council will normally be completed by 1 October each year. Any written work submitted will be returned as soon as a decision is made.

Additional copies of the notice may be had on application to the Joint Honorary Secretaries at the Viking Society for Northern Research, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT.