Summer Research Institute
For the last 15 years, Harris Manchester College has had the pleasure of hosting an annual Summer Research Institute (SRI). The SRI is a programme that assembles faculty from around the world and from different disciplines to come together and engage in an intense and stimulating research week.
Participants are accommodated and fed in our beautiful College and offered access to the full range of world-class libraries and resources available in Oxford. The SRI is a chance for participants to focus for a week on their research, writing or thinking, working and living alongside academic peers undertaking their own study projects.
Individual faculty members are usually formally nominated by their home institution to be considered for a place at the Institute.
World Class Libraries
Participants will have access to the College’s extensive library and archives while they are here. The library contains a general modern academic collection across a broad range of subjects, as well as specialised modern and antiquarian material (with a focus on religious dissent) as well as providing study space and access to e-resources in the beautiful Tate Library reading room.
Members of the SRI will also be able to access some of the University of Oxford’s 100 libraries, many of which hold collections and archives of international importance. The Bodleian Libraries, the University’s main research library group, contains over 12 million items, 80,000 e-journals and outstanding special collections and archives. Participants will have access to these resources alongside the College’s own library collections. The breadth of the collections available allows for nearly every type of research project to be supported.
Our Fellow Librarian provides support to participants in advance of their arrival in Oxford, to ensure that they can make the most of their research week once they arrive.
Meals and Fellowship
Members of the SRI will take meals in the College’s beautiful dining hall, the Arlosh Hall, where the College’s talented and award-winning chef and team provide excellent food and wines and can cater for a wide range of dietary needs. Each dinner is hosted by a member of the College’s Fellowship, and follows an informal drinks reception. All our guests have access to the Senior Common Room, where daily newspapers, fresh coffee, and a selection of teas and biscuits are available all day.
The programme incorporates ample time for participants to come together, at dinner, in the SCR, or at drinks, to engage in dialogue with their peers during the week. The opportunity to mix with others and discuss work and current research is often cited as one of the highlights by previous participants.
Accomodation
Participants are housed either in our fully renovated and modernised seventeenth-century houses or our newer accommodation built in a classical style, including the recently opened clock tower building.
All our rooms are beautifully furnished, have their own private bathroom attached, and offer WiFi. Double rooms are available for those travelling with a partner or spouse. We are also able to offer rooms on the ground floor if required.
Testimonials
Professor Shawn Apostel, of Bellarmine University recorded a short video on his experience at the Summer Research Institute.
Professor Manoj Thomas, Virginia Commonwealth University, Associate Professor of Information Systems here
Dr Manpreet K. Singh, Stanford University, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences here.
The College
The College was founded in the eighteenth century to provide a college education to those who could not accept the dogma of any denomination, at a time when the universities (Oxford and Cambridge) were only open to Anglicans. The College was based first in Manchester before moving to York, London, and eventually to Oxford in the late nineteenth century when it was already – radically – co-educational.
Harris Manchester became a full college of the University of Oxford in 1996, and recently celebrated its 25th Anniversary year of college status. You can find out more about the history of the College here.
The College is unique in its mission: it admits only ‘mature’ students over the age of 21, which gives it a special place within the University.
Like to know more?
We welcome enquiries from faculty deans, research directors, directors of faculty professional development or similar about how their institution might nominate faculty members to take part in the Summer Research Institute. We also welcome enquiries from individual faculty members. For the latest information and costs (including the costs for accompanying partners and spouses), please contact Kate Wilson (kate.wilson@hmc.ox.ac.uk).
