“When I was at primary school, I was really interested in science. I even wrote to Jim’ll Fix It; I think I wanted to do an experiment with test tubes and a white coats and everything, but I never heard back.” says filmmaker Carol Morley. “Of course, looking back, that’s probably for the best ...”

Morley, whose recent films include Dreams of a Life and The Falling, has just been named as the recipient of the Wellcome Trust Screenwriting Fellowship, which is awarded in partnership with BFI and Film4. Finally, without the dubious aid of a disgraced TV presenter, she’ll live her dream. From January she’ll have access to a treasure trove of scientific material and experiments galore. The fellowship, now in its third year, offers a huge prize: access to the trust’s library, archive and curio collection, visits to research institutions, a personal MRI brain scan and genome analysis, direct access to research trials and a space to work in at the Wellcome Collection. The £30,000 bursary also adds a sweetener to rival the coveted Jim Fixed It For Me medallion.

I ask Morley if her interest in science continued beyond primary school and her ill-fated missive to Jimmy Savile. “By the time I went to senior school I lost interest,” she admits. “It just wasn’t taught well; it was really dry and difficult.” It’s not an uncommon complaint, and one teachers and academics are still struggling to address. “Also, I remember in biology class, the teacher told us all to touch our hearts, and then he said ‘oh, not the girls; you might touch something else by mistake...’” she trails off, but she doesn’t need to say more. We’re both familiar with the dispiriting notion that women are somehow inherently ill-equipped for science.

Women have long had an uneasy relationship with science as an education subject and as a career. Something that is not so different within the film industry, as Morley points out. “Historically, women have had to, in order to get on, slot into a male way of doing things. What struck me as similar with filmmakers as with scientists, is that women have been excluded from film and science to a certain extent, in terms of the recognition or in terms of changing the form or the approach to the way things are done.”

I ask her if she thinks that this is to do with issues around childcare and family obligations. Actors Romola Garai and Sarah Solemani, among others, have campaigned on this point in particular, arguing that it seems to be thought of as a peculiarly female problem rather than a universal on and that it acts as a barrier for many in the creative industries.

Morley’s point, however, is linked to the process of working itself: “I think it’s about a kind of outlook: a woman wouldn’t run a lab or a film set the same way a man might, but you’re entering preconceived world and supposed to work in a preconceived way. It’s a mindset, and until that changes it will be difficult for women to get on.”

This fellowship, in fact, offers an immense opportunity on that score, not least because it’s not a role you can apply for. Instead, it is essentially a vote of confidence from the industry itself. Meroë Candy, of the Wellcome explained: “We go out every year to the film industry, we ask around companies and individuals and so it’s all industry-driven. Such an amazing eclectic list of names that gets given to us!” The Wellcome’s panel whittles this down to a shortlist, who are then asked to submit an expression of interest. “One of the previous nominees said that when they were approached they got goosebumps - it’s now quite coveted within the industry,” says Candy.

The opportunity to spend a year immersing herself in everything the scientific world has to offer seems to appeal greatly to Morley: “My films come out of a lot of research”, she says, “I’m most looking forward to exploring the archive and library and coming across material that is probably in some ways an account of something someones gone through.” It’s clear that this emphasis on research and personal experience is one of the qualities of her insightful, quietly insistent films that drew the eye of the industry and the Wellcome’s panel alike. Lonely deaths, swooning, ecstatic schoolgirls, mania, self-examination: all these and more have been the subject of Morley’s work.

She says that she is “very interested anyway in what you’d call aberrations of the mind or brain that affect human behaviour. Obviously, The Falling dealt with mass psychogenic illness, and I’d like to go further and explore that more. But I’m interested in embarking on something I don’t know about ...”

The Falling also contains a whiff of the occult, with references to “magick” and ley lines, as well as nods to The Crucible and The Wicker Man, and it seems to be a subject Morley is keen to mine the archive for: “I think they have a lot of stuff about witchcraft and the occult and magic so before I go in there I’ll be looking at areas that already interest me, but looking send [myself] on a different type of journey.”

It’s exciting to imagine what secrets the archives hold, not to mention the idea of seeing cutting-edge research first-hand. It’ll be fascinating to see what comes out of Morley’s year, but don’t expect there to be a film ready and waiting at the beginning of 2017. Or perhaps ever. Possibly the most unusual aspect of the fellowship is there is no requirement for Morley to produce anything at all. “If you had to have a very specific outcome that soon it would really affect how you went about it. I like the idea that it’s about research that leads to a screenplay and a film. It enables you to explore,” enthuses Morley.

And this is what science is really about: questioning and exploring the world. If this sense of excitement and curiosity had featured in Morley’s secondary school experience of science, who knows where it might have led her? Candy sums it up: “What’s brilliant about bringing science and film closer together is that science is sometimes seen as a closed door. So the fellowship opens locked doors from a science perspective.” Hopefully, Morley will continue to help open those doors for herself, her audience and for women in science and film alike. A year of scientific immersion is only the beginning of the journey - just as it should be.