ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowships

Midlands Graduate School

Summary

The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) is pleased to announce the introduction of a Postdoctoral Fellowship (PDF) scheme aimed at providing a career development opportunity for those in the immediately postdoctoral stage of their career, to provide the opportunity to consolidate their PhD through developing publications, their networks, and their research and professional skills.

The PDF call forms part of ESRC’s strategy to supporting early career researchers and will be delivered through our national network of Doctoral Training Partnerships (DTPs) and Centres for Doctoral Training (CDTs) which encompasses 73 research organisations across the UK.

The fellows must be located on an accredited DTP or CDT pathway, and as such will be embedded within a high-quality environment for research and training and will be able to apply for support to undertake a varied programme of activities supporting their continuing development for careers both within and outside of academia.

Proposals should be submitted to the relevant DTP or CDT by 16.00 on 23 March 2018.

Call details

The objective of this call is to provide support to those who are within 12 months of completing their PhD, to support them in consolidating their PhD, and preparing them for the next stage of their research careers. For the majority this is likely to be a research career in academia; however, those with a clearly articulated programme of activities to support the transition to a research career outside of academia, can also be considered (eg a researcher in public, private, or civil society organisations).

Fellows’ actual programmes should reflect their prior knowledge and experience and be designed to support their longer term research career aspirations. Activities could include, but are not limited to:

Produce publications in order to help establish track record
Engage with a range of different audiences to communicate research findings
Build networks to develop impact opportunities and inform and support further development
Collaborate with users through an internship or placement to help develop professional and transferrable skills and understanding of users’ organisations, provided they are an integral part of the fellowship
Further training to improve research and related skills
Developing funding proposals
Carry out further limited research (up to 25%) related to their PhD
Teaching, if this is aligned with the wider purposes of the fellowship (up to a maximum of six hours per week);
Research visits to internationally leading research organisations – either in the UK or abroad – for the purposes of research collaboration, training, and/or access to data or other resources not available at the applicant’s host organisation.

Fellowships are not required to complete all activities on the above list, and the chosen activities should be tailored to the aims of the fellowship and relevant to support the transition to the fellow’s desired career. Applicants must demonstrate a realistic and practicable programme of work in their proposal.

For further information, please see https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/mgsdtp/postdocfellowships/