ESRC Post-doctoral Fellowships 2021-22

The Department of Political Science, at UCL is inviting application for the ESRC post-doc Fellowships 2021/22. The Fellowships are aimed at those in the immediate postdoctoral stage of their career, to provide the opportunity to consolidate their PhD through developing publications, their networks, and their research and professional skills. Fellows must spend 100% of their working time (whether full-time or part-time) on the fellowship and cannot take any secondary paid employment during the course of the grant. Fellowships will provide funding for up to one year full-time, or up to two years part-time to cover the fellow’s salary plus up to £10,000 of additional costs (e.g., travel, conference attendance, training, fieldwork, mentoring time, etc.).

The call is open to applicants who have completed their PhD at a research organisation that is part of a Doctoral Training Centre and who are within 12 months of having completed their PhD. The 12 months period is calculated from the date of the viva (passed or passed with minor corrections) to the closing date of the full stage application, which is 23^rd March 2021. In calculating the 12 months the funder will make allowance for career breaks, where the applicant has interrupted their career for family, health or other personal reasons’. At the final submission deadline, the applicant must either have been awarded a PhD or have submitted their thesis and passed their viva voce with minor corrections, with the expectation that the PhD will be awarded by 1^st October 2021 which is the mandatory start date.

Before they can submit the full stage application, candidates will need to submit an outline application by 24^th January 2021 on the UCL’s application system for this call. UCL and the department are expected to filter applications beforehand, therefore we have set the deadline at 9am, 7^th Jan 2021. Potential candidates should fill in the application form template and send it to Monica Burgess, monica.burgess@ucl.ac.uk, copying in our Head of Research, Prof Ben Lauderdale, b.lauderdale@ucl.ac.uk. Candidates will be informed of the departmental selection as soon as possible and well before the outline is due in January. If selected, candidates will need to copy and paste from the template into the online application.

All Fellows are required to have a mentor based at the research organisation where the fellowship is held. The mentor should have experience and a strong interest in the applicant’s field of research but should not normally have been the applicant’s PhD supervisor. Therefore candidates must have the support of an SPP member of staff who will act as the mentor and who will have reviewed and commented on the candidate’s proposal before it is submitted to the department for consideration. Also please note that the mentor details will need to be included in the outline application. However, there is no need to provide the mentor’s support letter when applying to the department.

If you need any further info and have any questions, please contact Monica Burgess.