Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship competition 2025-26

Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowships aim to provide career development opportunities for those who are at a relatively early stage of their academic careers, but who have a proven record of research.

Support for Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowships at UCL involves a two-stage internal competition, firstly at departmental and then at Faculty level.

• The Institute of Archaeology (IoA) internal deadline for applications will be 4pm on Wednesday 15 October 2025

Application process

1. Applicants should fully complete the template application form below (the form replicates the online application, which will not be available before the Faculty deadline) and submit their draft application by email to Jo Dullaghan, IoA Research Coordinator, by the above deadline.  Prospective referees should be named on the form but do not need to be contacted at this stage.
    

   File

   Leverhulme ECF internal form - applicant

2. Applicants should confirm their eligibility* to apply to the scheme and have the agreed support of a mentor at the Institute of Archaeology who will need to complete a supporting statement as part of the application process. The mentor statement, which is also required by the above deadline, should comment on: (a) the proposed project, including its objectives, methods, outputs, and feasibility, as well as its importance to the discipline; (b) the applicant’s preparation to conduct the research; (c) the project’s relationship to the mentor’s expertise, departmental strengths, and broader institutional fit.
    

   File

   Leverhulme ECF internal form - mentor
3. *In order to be eligible, applicants must normally have submitted their doctoral thesis for viva voce examination between 19 February 2022 and 19 February 2026 (unless they have had a career break). Full eligibility criteria, guidance and application notes on how to fill out the application can be found on the Leverhulme Trust ECF webpages.
4. Applicants are strongly encouraged to get as much critical feedback as possible on their draft proposals in advance of submission for IoA review.

Following the IoA review, selected applications will be submitted to the Faculty-level competition (deadline: 4pm on 12 November 2025). Applicants successful at the Faculty-level competition will then be mentored through the application submission process to the funder. 

Further details

• Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship scheme
• UCL Faculty of Social and Historical Sciences Fellowships webpage
• Any enquiries may be directed to Jo Dullaghan, IoA Research Coordinator