A number of funders will soon release calls for early career fellowships with deadlines in the autumn. These calls cover a range of STEM disciplines and are all highly competitive. Some impose restrictions on the numbers of applications we can submit as a University. Therefore if you or someone you know would like to express interest in any of the following forthcoming Fellowship opportunities, please complete the EoI form by 11.59PM (BST), on 24th June 2024.
Further information about each opportunity is available when you start completing the relevant section of the EoI form (link below):
Please do the following two things before you express interest:
If you are interested in more than one fellowship, please start a new EOI form for each opportunity. You will get the option to submit another response at the end. Note that at the end of the form you are asked to submit your CV to an email address - you will only need to do this once regardless of how many times you complete the form.
Please get in touch with Carolyn Taylor (Research Officer, Research & Innovation Services: carolyn2.taylor@northumbria.ac.uk, CC: rm.research.development@northumbria.ac.uk) if you have any questions about the schemes above or the form.
Please note - this EOI process will only open once the formal submission deadline for the Leverhulme ECF 2024 round has passed. Please do not reach out to potential mentors until after 22 Feb 2024.
Northumbria University is inviting expressions of interest for Research Fellowships from early-career researchers to collaborate on original, exciting, and high-quality research through the Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship (ECF) 2024 competition.
The ECF scheme offers funding for outstanding early-career researchers who have not held a full-time permanent post in a UK university. Fellowships are funded for three years and offer research expenses of up to £6,000 per year. Our collegiate research environment supports a thriving cohort of early career academics, including those who have been supported by Leverhulme and are currently carrying out original research of their own design on an array of topics. The university has been awarded over £2.5M from Leverhulme since 2018 and we are looking to support new applications across our Academic Departments.
In the first instance, interested applicants should contact a member of staff to establish whether their research fits with our areas of expertise (staff profiles can be searched for on our Research Portal). Applicants will need to clearly state the innovative aspects of their research and how it is of relevance to the chosen department.
Please note - Leverhulme do not fund studies of disease, illness and disabilities in humans and animals, research that is intended to inform clinical practice, or the development of medical or commercial applications. Research where advocacy is an explicit component or policy-driven research where the principal objective is to assemble an evidence base for immediate policy initiatives, is also ineligible for Leverhulme support. In addition, Leverhulme promotes academic mobility through this scheme, encouraging candidates to move institutions in the course of their academic career (i.e. between their undergraduate university and proposed host institution). If you are a former Northumbria University undergraduate and have stayed here since (e.g. a Masters or Doctoral studies), you will need to make a special case explaining why you wish to apply for this fellowship with Northumbria, providing clear evidence of the academic and/or personal reasons for remaining, such as access to highly specialist equipment or a highly specialised research team.
Scheme Eligibility
Full scheme criteria is available on Leverhulme’s website here; applicants should read this information carefully as strict conditions apply, including:
applicants must hold a doctorate or have equivalent research experience by the time they take up the Fellowship and must not yet have held a full-time permanent academic post in a UK university or comparable UK institution.
applicants must hold a degree (any degree) from a UK higher education institution at the time of taking up the Fellowship or hold an academic position in the UK which commenced no less than 4 months prior to the application closing date.
applications from those with a doctorate must have submitted their doctoral thesis for viva voce examination by 4pm on the closing date of 22 February 2025.
applicants who formally submitted their doctoral thesis for viva voce examination before 22 February 2021 are not eligible to apply unless they have since had a career break or qualify under the Covid disruption clause (see LVH guidance for full details)
Shortlisting Process
Expressions of interest should be submitted by email with the subject header “LVH-ECR 2024, Surname, Forename” to rm.research.development@northumbria.ac.uk by 18:00 on Friday, 8th December 2024.
Applications should be sent as a single, combined PDF document, and include the following:
Shortlisted applicants will be contacted in early January 2025 to work on a final application with support from our Research and Innovation Services team and a Departmental research mentor before the submission deadline of 22 February 2025.
Best of luck,
Research Development Team at Northumbria University.
Back to top
