UKRI Future Leader Fellowships

We welcome expressions of interest from applicants who wish to apply for a UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Future Leaders Fellowships (FLF) with Cardiff University as the host organisation.

The UKRI FLF scheme, which invites applications from both UK and international candidates, will provide a comprehensive, yet flexible, package of support, including the Fellow's salary and all justified research, staff, and training costs.

Investment of up to £1.2 million over four years, with the ability to extend to up to seven years, will enable the next generation of researchers and innovators to benefit from outstanding support to develop their careers, and to work on difficult and novel challenges in adventurous, ambitious programmes of research.

These fellowships are for early career academics and innovators who are transitioning to or establishing independence. These fellowships are supportive of applicants from diverse career paths, including those returning from a career break or following time in other roles. Furthermore, UKRI encourages applications from those wishing to work part-time or in job shares in order to combine the fellowship with personal responsibilities.

Individuals should use the individual eligibility and the person specifications in the call document to establish their suitability for the scheme with reference to the objectives of the programme.

The significant support of the institution will be a critical component of these fellowships, which will enable the fellow to transition to or establish their research/innovation independence in any area supported by UKRI. The case for support should make clear the long-term aims of the programme, and why they matter – while providing more specific plans and costings for the first four years. Full call details of the scheme can be found on the UKRI website.

This is a single scheme across the entire UKRI remit, with no ring-fenced budgets for specific areas and no barriers to interdisciplinary or cross-sector research.

Expressions of interest

The Cardiff University internal call for Round 5 of the UKRI Future Leader Fellowship scheme opened on 1 October 2019. To express interest in submitting an application with Cardiff University as your host organisation, please email RISResearchDevelopment@Cardiff.ac.uk with the following details:

• your full name
• your discipline and expected host School.

Cardiff University has an internal process for assessing expressions of interest (EOI) to this scheme, the first stage of which involves a review of the EOI by your proposed host School. Once we have received the information requested above, we will put you in touch with the School and provide you with the information you need to submit an application to the scheme.

You must ensure that you discuss an application to this scheme with us well in advance of submitting an EOI for College Review Panel. The deadline for receipt of School-approved EOIs for panel review is 6^th January 2020. We will be unable to accept late applications; as such, we strongly recommended you contact with us as soon as possible in order to comply with internal School deadlines.

College assessment panels

Once support for salary funding has been agreed by the School, all applications that a School wishes to support will require formal approval at College level.

School-approved EOIs, which should contain sufficient information to allow assessment of the quality and suitability of the proposal, will be reviewed by a College-level Assessment Panel in January 2020.

The assessment panel will then make recommendations to the Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research, Innovation & Enterprise who will make a final decision on which applications are to be supported. This will be based on the quality and competitiveness of the individuals and the alignment of their research interests with the University’s priority areas for growth in research capacity.

Following this mandatory internal approval of an EOI, candidates will then be asked to submit a draft of their full proposal to their College prior to the submission of a mandatory outline proposal to UKRI.

UKRI outline and full proposal

For UKRI to gauge demand and inform panel development, it is mandatory for host organisations to submit an outline proposal for each of the applications they intend to support prior to submission of the full proposals. The deadline for submission of outline proposals to UKRI is expected to be 4 May 2020 (to be confirmed).

The UKRI Outline Proposal stage is mandatory and without this UKRI will not consider full applications. Feedback is not provided on the content and this is not a triage stage.

Full applications must then be submitted via Je-S. The expected deadline for this is 1 June 2020 (to be confirmed). The full application will be subject to expert peer review, followed by shortlisting and interview by a multi-disciplinary panel of senior decision makers with a track record of decision making across areas and disciplines.

Round 5 timeline

Call stage

Expression of interest (EOI) stage

Full application stage

Contact

For general queries, individuals should contact: