Leverhulme Early Career Fellowships

The School of Social and Political Sciences (SPS) process for review and selection of candidates for the 2025/26 round of the Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship is now open, with a deadline date of Monday 10th November for receipt of necessary documents (see below for details). Candidates should carefully check the eligibility criteria below before proceeding:

Applicants are expected to be at an early stage of their career. This is defined by Leverhulme as being within 4 years from the date of your successful Viva Voce examination. Exemption from this criterion may be granted for reasons occurring after the date of the viva voce examination such as: maternity leave, illness, family commitments.
To meet SPS eligibility criteria for consideration by the selection panel, candidates must have prior association with SPS and/or University of Edinburgh, defined as:
(i) Current or prior employment in any relevant role at the University of Edinburgh for a period of at least 3 months on an accumulative basis.
(ii) Study affiliation at any School within the University at either undergraduate or graduate level.
(iii) Demonstrable ongoing research links with SPS faculty which are substantive, for example related to an output, research or KEI project or prior funding proposal.

The 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. The expectation is that Fellows should undertake a significant piece of publishable work during their tenure, and that the Fellowships should lead to a more permanent academic position. Around 145 Fellowships will be available in 2026.

The University sets a limit on the number of applications that each school is allowed to submit and for this reason the School needs time to assess applications and select suitable candidates on the basis of a 2-page project proposal, 1 page of bibliographic references and abbreviated CV (max 2 pages) from each candidate, plus a short statement of support from their mentor (see point 2 below). If you are interested in applying for this scheme, please contact the SPS Research Office ssps.research@ed.ac.uk as soon as possible to register your interest.

Fellowships are tenable for three years on a full-time basis. The Trust will support requests to hold the award part-time over a proportionately longer period for health related reasons, disability or childcare commitments.

More information is available here Early Career Fellowships | The Leverhulme Trust

Leverhulme have announced the 2025/26 dates, which are shown below. However, to provide sufficient time for candidate selection and application development time, the School deadline for submitting an up-to-date two page CV and two page project summary, one page bibliographic references plus one page mentor support statement will be Monday 10th November 2025, with follow-on dates detailed below:

SSPS application pathway 2025/26:

1. Mentor identification

SPS requires a mentor (SPS core staff) for all early-career fellowships. In order to progress your proposal, you must first identify, contact and have an agreed mentor for your proposed project application. We strongly encourage all applicants to contact and secure the agreement of a prospective mentor in SPS as soon as possible, and work closely with them in developing their application.

2. Notification of expression of interest to School

Please email ssps.research@ed.ac.uk with your intention to apply as soon as possible.

3. Submission to School Panel assessment and selection process

In order to be considered for the School panel process, you must ensure that the following are sent to the SPS Research Office by Monday 10 November 2025:

Outline project proposal (max. 2 pages)
References/Bibliography (max. 1 page)
Candidate CV (max. 2 pages)
A mentor statement (max. 1 page)
Your mentor must ensure that in principle approval from the Head of Subject Area for your application is emailed to the SPS Research Office before you submit your documents to the School panel process.

Documents must all be in either Calibri or Arial font, size 11, with 2 cm margins.

Further information on preparing a submission to a School panel can be found here: Preparing a submission to a School panel.

4. Development and submission of application

Decisions made by the School will be communicated to candidates by mid December 2025. All applicants will be provided with feedback. Those who are selected to progress to full application stage will be given support on how to develop and strengthen their applications and will continue to work with the Research Office up until submission.

1 January 2026- scheme opens on Leverhulme Trust grant application portal.
29 January 2026 - deadline for full draft applications with budget in Leverhulme Trust grant online system. At this point a School review of the full application will be conducted and feedback given to strengthen final applications.
N.B. While the focus of feedback will be on strengthening proposals, the School may advise against submitting particular proposals at this point, if problems present with quality/design or feasibility and for which solutions cannot be developed before the deadline.
19 February 2026 - Deadline for application submission to Leverhulme Trust by the University.
May 2026 - Leverhulme Trust contacts applicants with outcome of their application.

Points to note

We interpret the Leverhulme Trust’s reference to the need for a ‘proven track record of research' to mean that the School requires applicants to have at least two peer-reviewed academic publications which are deemed of high quality, for which they had a leading role. If you would like further guidance on whether your CV and publication track record is suitable for this scheme, please speak to your mentor in the first instance and/or your subject area research convener.

Please email the Research Office if you have any unresolved queries: ssps.research@ed.ac.uk. The School Research Office can provide additional information and guidance on the scheme. Please get in touch if you are considering applying and have any questions.

Eligibility

Applicants must be supported by a UK host institution.
Applicants must have a PhD and have submitted their doctoral thesis for viva voce not more than 4 years prior to the scheme closing date. Therefore you must have submitted your doctoral thesis for viva voce examination by 4pm by the closing date of 19 February 2026; and only candidates who formally submitted their doctoral thesis for viva voce examination after 19 February 2022 are eligible unless they have since had a career break (extenuating circumstances such as illness, parental leave, care-giving duties are considered).
Leverhulme require that applicants must either hold a degree from a UK higher institution at time of taking up the fellowship or hold an academic position in the UK (fixed term lectureship or short-term fellowship) at the time of the application deadline, which commenced no less than 4 months prior to the closing date.
In addition SPS sets local candidate eligibility criteria which are detailed above.
Candidates of any nationality can apply but must be resident in the UK for the fellowship duration.
Those with permanent academic posts are not eligible to apply.
Candidates who have been, or are, currently a Principal Investigator on a three-year postdoctoral research project, or have held a comparable three-year postdoctoral position to pursue their own research, are not eligible to apply.