UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships Round 10

Background

UK Research and Innovation Future Leaders Fellowships (UKRI FLFs) are an exciting new opportunity to join Imperial. This scheme intends to grow the strong supply of talented individuals needed to ensure that UK research and innovation continues to be world class. These Fellowships support applicants from diverse career paths, including those returning from a career break or following time in other roles. UKRI encourages a broad range of applicants to include diversity of backgrounds, career paths, research areas, thought and approach as well as protected characteristics.

Fellowships are not restricted to work that would be seen as formal research in an applicant's chosen area but can also lead and develop innovation. FLF applications can be submitted within or across any area(s) of research and/or innovation covered by UKRI, from basic through to applied research and innovation.

Applications to UKRI where the fellowship is intended to be held at Imperial must be made via the College to ensure you have approved support from the proposed host Department.

More information about this fellowship can be found on the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships webpage. 

Holding a FLF at Imperial

At Imperial we encourage a diverse range of applicants and are therefore using an open selection process to identify individuals to support in applying to this funding opportunity. All interested candidates, both external and internal, must complete an online application form, which will be shared with the relevant department to consider. Applicants will be contacted directly by the relevant academic department in order to establish the level of support available.

We are committed to equality of opportunity, to eliminating discrimination and to creating an inclusive working environment for all. We therefore encourage candidates to apply irrespective of age, disability, marriage or civil partnership status, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion and belief, gender identity, sex, or sexual orientation. We are an Athena SWAN Silver Award winner, a Disability Confident Leader, A Race Equality Charter Bronze Award winner and a Stonewall Diversity Champion. 

The College is a proud signatory to the San-Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), which means that in hiring, promotion and research funding decisions we will evaluate applicants on the quality of their work, not the impact factor of the journal where it is published. More information is available on the research evaluation webpage.

The Early Career Researcher Institute  at Imperial hosted 2 online sessions for the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships on Friday, 24th January - 11.00-12.30 and Tuesday, 28th January – 14.00-15.30.

A recording of these sessions can be accessed using this link for internal applicants  FLF Briefing - Round 10 - Briefing 2.mp4. For external applicants, please contact ecri@imperial.ac.uk to obtain a copy of the recording. 

Applying

Applicant eligibility

These fellowships are for early career academics and innovators who are transitioning to or establishing independence. Applicants should view the UKRI's person specification (Annex A of the UKRI Round 10 guidance (pdf) to assess and justify their suitability for the scheme. 

Applicants are expected to hold a doctorate by the start date of the fellowship, however there are no eligibility rules based on years since PhD or whether the applicant currently holds a permanent/open-ended academic position or job role. Applicants who have already achieved research/innovation independence (for example, by securing funding aimed at this career stage) will not be competitive.


Imperial Departments

UKRI view it positively when the host institution makes clear statements about how the candidate may fit into their strategic vision/commitment to the specific research area. To facilitate this, individuals interested in applying for a FLF hosted at Imperial should initially approach their department of interest as soon as possible to ensure their research aligns to its strategic aims. Some departments have also declared particular areas in which they would be willing to host a fellow, or might have local processes for this scheme prior to the central application.

Faculty of Engineering

Aeronautics

The Department is willing to accept enquiries related to all relevant research areas, with a particular interest in Sustainable Aviation Technologies, Scientific Machine Learning and data-driven Aerospace Engineering, and Sustainable, Lightweight or Smart Structures. The key criteria for the Department in its shortlisting is the quality of the candidate and so we encourage candidates to apply even if they do not fall into these categories. (General contact - Sian Haynes)

Faculty of Engineering 2

Design Engineering

The Department is willing to accept enquiries related to all relevant research areas. In particular, we welcome applicants who share a strong alignment to the departments ethos of integrating analysis, behavioural insights and creative practices to build better futures. Non-permanent staff members and external applicants will be required to identify, and have the support, of an academic champion from the department who should be a permanent academic. Prospective applicants are encouraged to contact potential sponsors as early as possible.

General department contact – Dr. Billy Wu billy.wu@imperial.ac.uk (Director of Research)

Faculty of Medicine

Brain Sciences

The Department is willing to accept enquiries related to all relevant research areas (General contact - Celia Monteiro Domingues)

Faculty of Medicine

Metabolism, Digestion & Repro

The Department is willing to accept enquiries related to all relevant research areas (General contact - Chrystalla Orphanides)

Faculty of Natural Sciences

Centre for Environmental Policy

The Department will accept enquiries related to all relevant research areas (General contact - Anne Parry (a.parry@imperial.ac.uk)

Business School

The Business School (Departments of Finance; Economics and Public Policy; Management & Entrepreneurship; Analytics, Marketing and Operations) is willing to accept enquiries related to all relevant research areas (General contact - David Wilson)

Contact us

For further information and any queries please contact:

researchfellowships@imperial.ac.uk

Imperial's Future Leaders Fellows