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RGS-IBG Small Research Grants

The Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) Small Research Grants provide awards of up to £3,500 to early career researchers for original desk or field-based research in any area of geography. Each year several grants are given to early career researcher individuals who are up to 10 years post PhD. One grant of up to £3,500 is awarded from the 20th International Geographical Congress Fund. The Jasmin Leila Award and the Rob Potter Award may be given as a supplement to projects supported under the scheme, or as independent awards. Applicants are expected to hold a PhD at the time of applying, must be affiliated with a UK Higher Education Institution or equivalent research establishment and must be Fellows or Members of the Society. These awards are only available to individuals. At risk academic geographers hosted at UK institutions through programmes such as Cara are eligible to apply. The grants support original research across all areas of geography, including both human and physical geography topics.

Peter Smith Award

The Peter Smith Award offers £1,000 to a team of second year undergraduate geography students undertaking fieldwork overseas. The award was launched in 2020 through the Society's Geographical Fieldwork Grants (now RGS Explore Grants) and is named after Peter Smith, a long-standing supporter and Trustee of the Royal Geographical Society with boundless enthusiasm for geography, the outdoors and for learning. The purpose of the award is to support the development of second year undergraduate geography students through international field-based research, with applications from across the breadth of the discipline welcomed. The first Award was delayed until 2022 because of the travel restrictions of Covid. Recipients have conducted diverse research projects including studies of mangrove ecosystems, coastal pollution assessment, oral histories of environmental crises, and glacier research.