Prestigious £100k research prize awarded to world-leading academic

Tuesday 15 October 2019

A world-leading expert in modern languages and comparative literature from the University of St Andrews has been awarded a research prize worth £100,000 from the prestigious Leverhulme Trust.

Dr Emma Bond, a Reader in the School of Modern Languages, has been awarded one of the 2019 Philip Leverhulme Prizes by the Leverhulme Trust. The £100,000 Philip Leverhulme Prizes recognise the achievement of outstanding researchers whose work has already attracted international recognition and whose future career is exceptionally promising.

Dr Bond was awarded the Philip Leverhulme Prize for her research exploring the transnational circulation of people, texts and objects, which has helped set a new agenda for modern languages research, and for her work in knowledge exchange and the creative humanities.

The prize will fund Dr Bond’s research for two years, which will allow for the completion of a new monograph on the topic of Transnational Collecting, Curating and Display. The project will use a modern languages framework to reinterpret the role of empire and colonialism in a series of museum collections worldwide.

Dr Bond’s research focuses on modern and contemporary Italian and European cultural production within a postcolonial framework. Her first two monographs explored the link between identity and space, and particularly how corporeal and linguistic aspects of identity are represented in contemporary transnational, migration and border literatures.

Philip Leverhulme Prizes have been awarded annually since 2001 in commemoration of the contribution to the work of the Trust made by Philip Leverhulme, the Third Viscount Leverhulme and grandson of William Hesketh Lever, the founder of the Trust.

The Leverhulme Trust was established by the Will of William Hesketh Lever, the founder of Lever Brothers. Since 1925 the Trust has provided grants and scholarships for research and education.

Today, it is one of the largest all-subject providers of research funding in the UK, distributing at least £100m a year.


The Leverhulme Trust awards funding across academic disciplines, supporting talented individuals in the arts, humanities, sciences and social sciences to realise their personal vision in research and professional training. As well as substantial grants for research, the Trust offers fellowships for researchers at every stage of their career, grants for international collaboration and travel, and support for the fine and performing arts.

Dr Emma Bond is the Deputy Director of the Graduate School at the University of St Andrews and is the Assistant Director of the Centre for Minorities Research (CMR).

Issued by the University of St Andrews Communications Office.

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