Giving to the English Faculty

Donate

If you wish to make a donation to the Faculty, please click here.

Find Out More

You can find out more about development activities within the Humanities Division and the wider university here.

Get Involved

To discuss how you would like to help the Faculty, please contact the Faculty Administrator.

Current Priorities

As part of the University’s current ‘Oxford Thinking’ campaign the Faculty is launching a number of development initiatives. We have three principal priorities for the next few years.

Supporting Academic Posts

The Faculty has an unparalleled depth of expertise across all periods and subject areas and hosts the UK's largest graduate school in English. To maintain this position, we must attract and to retain the best Faculty members in the world. We must endow our existing posts and create new posts that respond to the changing shape of our discipline, such as English and World literatures, American literature, book history, and the study of language. We also require new posts that will build on existing strengths. Oxford has long been the world’s home for Shakespearean studies and we aim to establish a Professorship dedicated to Shakespeare, the first of its kind in the Faculty’s history.

Creating Post-Doctoral and Early Career Fellowships

We aim to secure funding for a number of Post-Doctoral and Early Career Development Fellowships.  The most difficult part of any English academic’s career is the period between completing a doctorate and landing a first lectureship. Too many excellent scholars find themselves struggling to survive in the hiatus; some even leave the profession altogether. A fixed-term Post-Doctoral Fellowship, common in the Sciences but extremely rare in the Humanities, can transform a young academic’s research life and prospects. We hope to host several within the Faculty, covering a wide range of areas in English language or literature.

Supporting Graduate Scholarships

We are determined to expand our programme of graduate scholarships. The Faculty is committed to its duty to nurture and promote graduate students, who are the next academic generation. Cuts in government funding have seriously reduced the number of graduate awards made nationally within the UK and funding for international students remains highly competitive. We want to ensure that every excellent student who applies to study with us can take up their place, regardless of their ability to pay.