Conference Support

Income from sales of the Philosophical Quarterly enables the SPA to offer grants to support philosophy events organised in Scotland, including conferences and workshops, reading parties, and public lectures (lectures for primarily non-academic audiences).

We offer grants:

  • of up to £750 for one-day events
  • of up to £1250 for all other events

However, in exceptional cases, and only when the need and justification for such additional funding is clear, the SPA can provide grants of up to £2,500.

The SPA normally will not support individual talks to academic audiences (i.e., academic research events that are not plausibly “workshops” or “conferences”); however, in exceptional circumstances, and only when the need and justification for such funding is clear, the SPA may support such talks.

The SPA particularly welcomes applications from early careers persons (i.e. persons who have received their PhD within the last five years).

Applications can be made at any time.

In order to apply, please fill out the following form:

Scots Philosophical Association Conference Grant Application

Send the completed form to the Secretary at scotsphil@gmail.com. 

Guidelines for applications are contained in above application form. Some issues to consider are:

  • Application budgets are normally expected to show other sources of income (e.g. support from the department hosting the event).
  • SPA conference grants normally take form of guarantee against losses.
  • SPA funded conference normally held in Scotland and are open to all SPA members and to all philosophy students in Scotland.
  • The SPA expects that applicants will have given proper consideration to gender balance, accessibility and environmental impact in the planning of their events.
  • Up to an additional £500 (guarantee against losses) is available to offset costs of dependent care that are specifically incurred for conference attendance.
  • The SPA normally does not fund applications proposing to utilize SPA funds for food/refreshments for non-speakers/organizers.

Decisions about conference grants are made by the SPA Committee.

The SPA budget year runs from 1 September – 31 August. In pre-pandemic years, all annual allotted funds were committed roughly by April. Please keep this in mind when planning applications.

Supported conferences should acknowledge the financial support of the SPA on all the publicity announcing the event. SPA logos can be downloaded here: round-black, round-white-1, round-white-2, round-invert, horizontal-black, horizontal-white.