Fellowships at UCL Chemistry

Before writing an EoI for a fellowship application, perform the following steps 1-7. Step 1 determines whether your proposal fits into the scope of the fellowship scheme. Steps 2-6 are required to benchmark your CV/proposal idea to successful fellowship recipients (step 7). The points below will be used by Prof. Stefan Howorka and others to evaluate your EoI.

1) Is your proposal within the scope of the fellowship scheme? Go to the website of the fellowship funder to read up on the scope of programme. Also inform yourself on the research ideas of successful fellowship recipients. The names of the recipients and their research abstracts are usually provided on the website of the fellowship funder. The combined information gives you vital clues on whether your proposed research idea is within the scope of the programme.

2) How many published 1st authorship papers are on your CV? These papers are important as they indicate leadership, as viewed by reviewers of fellowship applications. Two to five of these publications would be good, ideally in leading journals of your field. Leading journals may be Nature Chemistry, ACIE, or JACS, but can also be others, depending on your respective field.  Co-corresponding, corresponding, or last-authorship publications are also highly favourable as they too indicate leadership and a degree of independence. A few of these above publications can count more than 10-20 co-contributing publications. 

3) Do you hold any grants? This includes travel grants or small consumable grants. Any grants are important as they indicate leadership and independence. Successful recipients of RSURFs usually have some existing grants when they apply for the fellowship.

4) Research conference talks or poster presentation? These are also relevant as they demonstrate leadership and independence.

5) Independent research idea. The research idea of your proposal should be independent of research activities of your supervisors. Your idea should not constitute a logical continuation of their ideas.

6) Societal impact of research idea. A societal impact is good and depends on fellowship scheme. Outreach and engagement are optional benefits, depending on the scheme.

7) Benchmarking.  After following steps 2-6, check how your CV compares to those of previous recipients of the fellowship scheme you are interested in. Check the recipients’ publication track record at the time of their fellowship submission (using e.g. Google scholar). Compare your publications/grant/talks to the output of them. You can also do the same for the research topic.