Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Fellowships are personal awards to an individual, whilst grants tend to be funding a project that involves a group of academics forming a research team.

Fellowships fund the salary of the applicant, while a grant usually allows hiring people to deliver the project. In most cases this means that the applicant of a grant needs to have a salary supported by university, and the grant will support only a small part (e.g. 10-20%) of the salary of the applicant – the time that is calculated as needed to deliver the proposed project. There are exceptions e.g. BHF early career grants.

Apart from funding the salary of the applicant, certain fellowships can also fund additional staff costs.

Definitely yes. The support of the supervisor is important to develop preliminary data, ensure you have time for writing the fellowship, and ensure that your ideas will not compete with these of your supervisor.

At the early career stage, it is most common to apply for and undertake one or more postdoctoral positions in different laboratories. Early career fellows are a minority, but such a fellowship is great for your career as it shows that you can get an independent funding.

At a career development stage, you can apply for lecturer / assistant professor positions at Universities or group leader positions at research institutes. Once obtaining such a position, the new group leader/lecturer/assistant professor can develop the team by applying for grants.

It depends on your situation. You want to show that your career is on an upwards trajectory at the point of application, and that you can deliver independent research. 

Different fellowships are aimed at different career stages, e.g. Wellcome ECR is within the 3 years post PhD, while the UKRI FLF requires evidence of prior leadership.

Whenever you apply your CV will be assessed at the stage of the career you are applying at.

The Fellowship Academy supports early career fellowships (PhD to postdoctoral) and career development fellowships (postdoctoral to independent PI starting a new lab) applicants. 

For clinical and allied health candidates we also support applications to doctoral fellowships.

Anyone who would like to apply for a fellowship or a grant. Pitch-to-Peers is to present (pitch) the original idea of the project and get feedback on whether it fits the funder and fellowship/grant scheme in mind, to work out the best way of selling the idea. There is no need to have the project idea fully developed and written up to participate in one of these.

Please e-mail the Fellowship Academy, explain your situation and we will get in touch.

Grant clinics are organised by Research support teams. Each department has a dedicated research support officer who will help organise the grant clinic. Your Fellowship Academy mentor can help putting together the most appropriate panel. Please get in touch early – people are busy, and it may be difficult to find a time that would be suitable for everyone.

If you want to apply for a fellowship and are looking for a host get in touch with the Head of the Department you are interested in joining. Explain which fellowship you want to apply for, what your research is about, why it fits within the proposed department. Do your homework first, learn about the work carried out in the host department and why it is a good place for you and what you will bring in.

No, we would like to know that you are thinking about applying for a fellowship, so that we can support you early on, you do not need to have a draft already written. 

We will support fellowship applications at early career researcher and career development stage for discovery scientists and doctoral/postdoctoral/senior fellowships for clinical or allied health professionals.

Contact us to begin with, once you reach a stage that you know which funder you are going to submit an application with, your Fellowship Academy mentor will help allocate you a buddy.

Usually, it is at the time of application, but different schemes may have different rules e.g. ERC. Check with the specific fellowship you have in mind.

Usually yes but remember about extensions for career breaks (e.g. maternity/paternity breaks) – these extensions will often depend on the funder. It is also worth checking with the smaller funders if they will be more flexible.

No, you may only have one fellowship application under consideration by the UKRI or any of it’s councils, e.g., MRC, BBSRC etc at any point. However, you may simultaneously apply to other funders’ fellowship schemes, e.g., Wellcome.

It depends on your situation – if you have only a year of your current contract left then applying for many fellowships at once is a good idea, as you may not have time to wait for the outcome of the first application. You can only hold one fellowship once awarded, but you can apply for many (but only one for UKRI).

If you have a long-term position and can afford the time to wait for a feedback from the first application to improve your application to go again – you may choose that.

The UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship is the only fellowship that has an internal university selection stage, as the university is restricted with the number of applications it is allowed to put in.

You can apply for a global fellowship, which means that you go abroad for 2 years and then come back to Birmingham for the last (3rd year) of the fellowship.

It depends on the fellowship – some such as the Wellcome CDA, or the ERC Starter grant allow for quite big pieces of equipment. Most fellowships fund smaller equipment. It is best to check the funder guidelines on what can be costed for. 

If you are applying for a career development fellowship to start your own lab, you need to explain how your research is independent from your previous supervisor. How it is your idea and your work. If you have your supervisor as a main collaborator, it is unlikely to look convincing that your research is independent.