SSH funding, a cut list & a free writing session

A shorter one this week. In the news, a fresh funding channel for social science and humanities researchers in Germany and Canada that I think more people should know about. On the craft, the conversation I keep having with clients this month — not how to write more, but which paper you're allowed to not write at all. And, at the end, an invitation and a mini-job.

01 · In the field: A new German-Canadian funding channel for SSH researchers

Last Monday, the DFG and Canada's SSHRC announced they are expanding their partnership to fund a new joint International Research Training Group (IRTG) specifically in the social sciences and humanities — with health-focused topics excluded. This is a bilateral doctoral programme in which a German university and a Canadian institution jointly train a cohort of doctoral researchers, with mandatory reciprocal research visits of six to twelve months at the partner institution. The funding runs for a potential nine years — a five-year first period with a possible four-year renewal — and on the Canadian side, SSHRC will support one selected group with up to $2.124 million across the full period. The German side is funded separately by the DFG.

The timeline is the important part for anyone thinking about it seriously: draft proposals are due 31 March 2027, full establishment proposals by 1 April 2028, decision in November 2028, funding starts spring 2029. A free virtual information event with both funders is scheduled for 29 September 2026, 5–6 p.m. CEST. That gives interested consortia six months to find a partner and shape a joint programme before the first deadline.

Why this matters: structural funding for SSH doctoral cohorts is rare, and rarer still is funding that pays for genuine transatlantic exchange on the humanities side (most existing IRTGs are STEM-heavy). If you're mid-career, hold a permanent post, and have a Canadian counterpart whose work aligns with yours, this is a channel worth flagging to your dean now — the six-to-twelve month student mobility requirement means the partnership needs to be real, not paper. And if you're a PhD student or ECR reading this: the concrete thing to do is ask your supervisor whether anyone in your department is exploring this, and whether it would be worth a conversation with the Canadian collaborators you already have.

02 · On the craft: The paper you're allowed to not write

Something I've noticed more and more in the last year, and heard from almost every client I've coached this summer: the list of "papers I should be working on" keeps growing, and the guilt about the ones sitting untouched grows with it. Half-drafted articles from three years ago. Conference papers that were supposed to become journal pieces. A book chapter I promised to an edited volume in 2023.

The default advice for this problem is scheduling — block more time, protect the mornings, be more disciplined. And I do give that advice. But I've come to think it's actually the second question, not the first. The first question is harder and quieter: which of these papers are you allowed to not write?

I mean this seriously. Not every draft you have in a folder is a paper you owe the field. Some of them were the right idea at the wrong time. Some of them were built around a dataset or archive you've moved past. Some of them were written to please a supervisor or a committee that is no longer part of your life. Some of them, honestly, were written because you thought you needed one more publication that year, and you don't need it now. There is an active conversation in academic publishing right now — a recent LSE Impact Blog piece by Muhammad Aamir Cheema has been widely shared, arguing that AI-driven overproduction has made the case for individual researchers to publish fewer papers on purpose. I agree with the direction, but I don't think you need a policy debate to give yourself permission. You can just look at the list.

What I ask my clients to do is this: take the list of drafts and half-projects, and next to each one write two things. The first: what argument does this paper actually make in the field, in one sentence? If you can't write that sentence, the paper isn't ready — but more importantly, it may not need to be written. The second: what will change in your life or your work if this paper exists? If the honest answer is "very little" — no promotion depends on it, no grant needs it, no reader is waiting — then that paper is a candidate for the cut list. Not "I'll get to it eventually." A real, deliberate decision that this one doesn't happen.

The academics I know who write the best work write less than they think they should, and their calendars have room for the ideas that are actually alive. It's why my EMERGE Co-Writing sessions at 10 a.m. CEST are as much about deciding what not to work on as they are about writing itself — the fresh morning hour is when you can see clearly what matters most.

Try this week:

1. Write out your current list of "papers I should be working on" — every draft, every promised chapter, every conference paper waiting to be turned into an article.

2. Beside each one, answer: what argument does this paper make? and what will change if it exists?

3. Pick at least one to formally take off the list. Tell someone — a co-author, a colleague, yourself in writing. It counts.

03 · An invitation: come and write with us at 10 a.m.

The easiest way to keep working on your writing in company is to come and sit in one of my EMERGE Co-Writing sessions. I am running one inside the free EMERGE Café community tomorrow, Tuesday, from 10 am - 12 midday. 

There's no cost to it and no obligation to keep coming. Just a room of people taking their writing — and each other — seriously. 

Come in, write with us, see if it fits.

Warmly,
Melanie Sindelar
Founder, EMERGE Scholars Collective

P.s. I am currently searching for someone to assist me in the preparation of a manuscript—some formatting work according to guidelines, splitting up the larger document into smaller ones, describing alt-text for images, etc. The work needs to be completed between 28th-31st August. If you have experience or know somebody who does, please forward this to them. Reach out to info@melaniesindelar.com letting me know your experience, and we can discuss rates.