Independent postdoctoral fellowship opportunities

The School of History offers a supportive and collaborative environment for early career scholars to develop their research careers. A prestigious independent fellowship offers scholars the chance to develop their research profile and become a research leader. The School is keen to support fellowship applications from outstanding individuals for independent fellowships.

If you are interested in any of these schemes, the first step is to contact a potential mentor at St Andrews (see our staff list), and seek their support of your application. Your mentor will then be able to guide you through the process of securing the necessary ‘letter of support’ or ‘invitation letter’ from the School in conjunction with the Director of Research.

Queries and applications can be directed to the Director of Research by emailing histdor@st-andrews.ac.uk

For certain schemes, there is an internal selection process either within the School of History, or within the School and the University. Information about deadlines for those schemes is below.

When assessing your expression of interest for support, the School considers:

• your track record
• the research that you propose to carry out and where that fits within the School strategy
• your career stage, experience and why you would benefit from this fellowship at this stage in your career.

As part of its policy, the School actively promotes the fair treatment of all staff and students irrespective of sex, sexual orientation, age, race, belief, disability, pregnancy and maternity or relationship status. The School of History holds an Athena Swan Bronze Award and encourages expressions of interest from highly motivated candidates of any self-identifying group.

Fellowship schemes

• Leverhulme Trust early career fellowships: our internal deadline for preliminary applications is 5pm on 18 November 2024. Applicants should submit a draft of their Leverhulme application form, including the sections listed on the Leverhulme Trust early career fellowships page, to histdor@st-andrews.ac.uk. The School can usually only put one application forward to the university-level process. The final Leverhulme deadline is in February 2025.
• British Academy postdoctoral fellowships: our internal deadline for expressions of interest is 5pm on 2 September 2024. Applicants should submit to histdor@st-andrews.ac.uk:

  (1) a short project description (max. 2 pages);
  (2) a short CV (2 pages);
  (3) the name of a proposed mentor at the University of St Andrews, who must be contacted in advance;
  (4) a short statement on how the project fits the research profile of the School (200 words).

  The final British Academy deadline for approved applications is 5pm on 2 October 2024.

• There is currently no internal deadline for Wellcome Trust: contact your potential mentor.