Fellowship schemes

Broadly, a fellowship is a funding award given to an individual researcher that will allow them to achieve something personally within their research career.

It is different from grant funding because a researcher would apply for grant funding to pursue a particular research project. (A project grant could pay part of their salary but also the salaries of other researchers working on the project, as well as other types of research costs). Whereas a fellowship will pay the researcher’s own salary cost – which allows them to focus entirely on their personal research project or interest – and may cover additional research costs too.

Fellowships are a key to the progression of researchers on a research-only pathway. Often, they are considered as an ‘accelerator’ on such a pathway. What sets fellowships apart becomes clearer when looking at the different types of fellowship, and who is eligible to apply for them. All are competitive and merit-based, and are judged on an application submitted to the funder.

Early-career research fellowships

Among the best known fellowship schemes in a research context are early-career research fellowships. A variety of research funders provide these to enable early-career researchers (postdoctoral researchers, mainly) to become independent research leaders. They are typically three to eight years in length, and pay the salary costs of the researcher (who will be employed at a host university) so that they have the freedom to pursue their research. Schemes also provide varying levels of research funding so that the researcher can employ a postdoctoral researcher, research assistant or doctoral researcher to help them.

These are some of the most prominent examples, although there are many other smaller and more specific schemes:

Royal Society University Research Fellowship (URF)
Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellowship
BBSRC Discovery Fellowship
EPSRC Postdoctoral Fellowship
MRC Career Development Award
NERC Independent Research Fellowship
UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship
Wellcome Early Career Award (replacing Sir Henry Dale Fellowship, Sir Henry Wellcome Fellowship and Research Career Development Fellowship)
Leverhulme Trust early career fellowships (available across all disciplines)
Marie Sklodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships (The EU’s flagship early-career scheme)
European Research Council Starting Grants (Though called a grant, it is very similar to a fellowship)

Established research fellowships

There are a variety of schemes for established researchers (from mid-career onwards), although many of these researchers will also seek external funding through grants. They range from schemes aimed at mid-career, to those that target senior or leading researchers. In some cases, the aim is to free the researcher from any teaching or admin duties, so that they can focus on new research that investigates deep scientific problems.

Examples of established research fellowships include:

Contextual research fellowships

A number of schemes are intended for a specific subgroup of researchers.

These include:

Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship For early-career researchers who require a flexible working pattern due to personal circumstances or caring commitments.
Daphne Jackson Fellowship Enables researchers across the Research Councils to return to a research career after a career break.

Activity-specific fellowships

There are also schemes which specifically aim to foster certain types of research activity, such as research with industry, or international collaborations, as well as within specific areas of STEM.

Examples of this type of activity-specific fellowships include:

UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship. Aims to foster interdisciplinary research.
Industrial Fellowships, Royal Society, and Royal Academy of Engineering. Seeks to enable research in industry.
Enterprise Fellowships, Royal Society of Edinburgh, and Royal Academy of Engineering. Supports start-up or 'spin-out' activity.
Turing AI Fellowships. Aims to support excellent research in artificial intelligence.
Royal Society Wolfson Fellowship. To attract outstanding research leaders to the UK from overseas.
Newton International Fellowship. To bring young or mid-career researchers from outside the UK to work with a UK researcher.

Scale

There are thought to be 300-400 fellowship awards available each year at early-career stages, which means they are highly competitive. More senior schemes tend to be fewer. At any one time, UKRI (UK Research and Innovation) believes it supports up to 1500 researchers across its range of schemes (most of which are multi-year, so this total is much larger than the number available each year).