The Wellcome Trust and BFI Screenwriting Fellowship in association with Film4
The Wellcome Trust and BFI Screenwriting Fellowship in association with Film4 is awarded to a writer of exceptional talent who seeks to explore science and the human condition. Celebrating the spirit of curiosity, the Fellowship recognises original, enquiring and visionary screenwriting. The Fellow will receive £30 000 and unparalleled access to some of the most exciting scientific and historical research in the world.
The Wellcome Trust is a global charitable foundation dedicated to achieving extraordinary improvements in health. As well as supporting biomedical research, we work with the brightest minds in science, the arts and humanities to explore the impact science and medicine have on our lives and what it means to be human in a culture of constant scientific development. So we work with the arts, television and entertainment industries to identify and support like-minded creative practitioners who want to bring the biomedical science and its ethics, history and social context to a broad range of audiences.
We ran a screenwriting prize in 2012 and received an overwhelming response. The winner was Al Smith, a playwright and TV drama writer who is now writing his screenplay, a coming-of-age love story about two teenagers, each with an unusual neurological condition who steal a car and go on a road trip.
Building on this success, in 2013 we will award one exceptional writer the Wellcome Trust and BFI Screenwriting Fellowship in association with Film4. It will enable the Fellow to spend time with specialists in biomedical research, healthcare, ethics, history of medicine and the social sciences. The purpose of the Fellowship is open-ended. We hope that by enabling a writer to immerse themselves in a world in which they are particularly interested but which they could not normally access, they will be able to explore these themes in more depth and encourage exciting conversations about science.
We are continuing to work in partnership with the BFI, the UK's lead film organisation, with experts at Film4 playing an advisory role in the development of the Fellowship opportunity. We will be consulting with key practitioners in the film industry to identify future Fellows: writers whose work is in keeping with the Trust’s core values of boldness, independence and integrity.
What we offer
- A £30 000 bursary covering a period of one year.
- Access and introductions to some of the world's leading researchers and practitioners whose expertise and outlook chime with the Fellow's interests, whether in biomedical science or in its social and historical contexts.
- Tailored visits to Wellcome Trust research centres, in the UK and internationally.
- Behind-the-scenes access to the Wellcome Library and Wellcome Collection, including: one of the world's largest collections of biomedical images, film and sound recordings; invitations to private events; a network of experts and specialist Library staff; and Library resources such as journals, specialist borrowing rights, interlibrary loans and the Trust's own records.
- The opportunity to be part of the growing community of other Wellcome Trust Fellows whose expertise ranges across science, history of medicine, ethics and public engagement.
- From 2014, a new creative space to think and to work in with scholars, creative practitioners and scientists working on interdisciplinary projects - The Hub at Wellcome Collection.
- Membership of Henry's, the Wellcome Trust's private members' club.
In return, we would like the Screenwriting Fellow to embrace their role as ambassador for the exciting work of the Wellcome Trust, to work with the Trust, BFI and Film4 to consider how to bring about a change in the cultural conversation about science. As part of their role we would like them to contribute to selective capacity building and communications activities in the film industry calendar, such as panel events and talks.
The writer who will take up the Fellowship in 2014 will be announced in late autumn 2013.
