The Jane Moody Scholarship Fund

A fund has been set up in Jane’s memory and bearing her name: The Jane Moody Scholarship Fund. It will be used to support the arts and humanities at York in line with Jane’s own commitment to the community and her vigorous, imaginative and scholarly pursuit of its projects.

The purpose of the Fund will be to sponsor doctoral fellowships at the Humanities Research Centre, with a focus on Jane’s own scholarly passions. These will offer invaluable financial assistance to the brightest students in the final year of their PhD. Emerging academics will benefit both from the immediate funding for the completion of their studies, and from the distinction of being a Jane Moody Doctoral Fellow.

Recipients of the fund are encouraged to cross traditional boundaries and to be creative and experimental in their approach. The aim of the Scholarships is to develop and enhance workplace skills, with an emphasis on communication skills (spoken, written, visual), so scholars can convey complex ideas in a way that is accessible to a non-specialist.

If you would like to donate a gift in memory of Jane, it would be greatly appreciated and used to continue the work to which Jane herself was so dedicated.

past success

The fund has invented opportunity in a range of research research areas within the arts and humanities. Mary Emmett was able to produce a musically-searchable database of tunes; Rachel Feldberg recreated real-life interviews with ordinary people in post-war Britain; Janet Remmington explored the British-South African writer Noni Jabavu; and Joanne Harrison formed digital maps of the lost streets of Victorian Burmantofts and Sheepscar, Leeds.

You can read more about our 2020/2021 candidates here.

about Jane

Professor Jane Moody was Director of the Humanities Research Centre and Professor of English at the University of York.

Jane made her home in York in 1997, coming from a research fellowship at Girton College Cambridge and her BA and PhD from Oxford. She was appointed to a personal chair at the University of York in 2004 and served as the Research Chair in the Department of English and Related Literature. The Department’s top ranking in the country was due in no small part to Jane’s strategic intelligence and her gift for helping other people to make the most of their research.

Jane’s career at the University culminated in her role at the Humanities Research Centre. The Centre, under her leadership, has become a world-class interdisciplinary research hub for the humanities. It brings together staff, postgraduates, postdoctoral students and academic visitors from more than forty countries in a vibrant intellectual community. The Centre’s aim is to undertake world-class interdisciplinary research which changes the way people think. 

Jane believed that a University can contribute to the place in which it is located, not just economically, but socially and culturally.

Both inside and outside the University, Jane demonstrated the public value of humanities research and believed that a University can contribute to the place in which it is located, not just economically, but socially and culturally.

“All of Jane’s qualities – her wit, style, love of theatre, meticulous planning and delight in surprise, were an inspiration to students and staff alike. We hope this fund in her memory will carry this inspiration forward for many years to come”

Professor Bill Sherman

Department of English and Related Literature

If you are considering giving a larger gift, and would like to have a conversation first, please get in touch with Sarah Disney, University of York, Head of Individual Philanthropy, on sarah.disney@york.ac.uk.