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Academic Fellowships in LIFD

Fellowship Schemes

A funded fellowship is a prestigious award offering flexible and independent research funding to explore large scale and challenging research ideas. Fellowship opportunities are available for all career stages, from recent PhD graduates through to senior Professors; eligibility will vary by scheme, career stage, discipline and country. There are a wide range of schemes that align to Fluid Dynamics disciplines including:

  • UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships is a scheme that supports early career researchers and innovators with outstanding potential. The scheme is open to all disciplines and has two deadlines per year.
  • Research Council Fellowships are offered by all the UK research councils to support independent researchers. Schemes are run by NERC (focusing on environmental sciences), EPSRC (engineering), BBSRC (biological sciences) and MRC (medical sciences).
  • Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellowships provide support for early career post-doctoral researchers and encourage them to become future research leaders in engineering
  • Royal Society University Research Fellowships are aimed at scientists who are in the early stages of their research career and have the potential to become leaders in their field.
  • Leverhulme Early Career Fellowships are designed for early career researchers, with a research record but who have not yet held a full-time permanent academic post.
  • ERC schemes offer Starting Grants for talented early-career scientists, Consolidator Grants for scientists who want to consolidate their independence by establishing a research team, and Advanced Grants for established, leading principal investigators who want long-term funding to pursue a ground-breaking, high-risk project.
  • Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions Individual Fellowships The Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions research fellowship programme offers support to researchers at all stages of their careers, and all are eligible for funding. LIFD currently has two MSCA fellows working with us, and we are interested in receiving further applications from the institute through the fellowship programme.

Why come to Leeds

LIFD is a cross-disciplinary research institute bringing together the expertise of over 200 members of staff, postdoctoral researchers and PhD students with teaching and research interests in fluid dynamics. LIFD was established in 2018, and builds on a track record of research in fluids going back over 50 years. We provide a hub to facilitate world-leading research and education in fluid dynamics and to bring interdisciplinary perspectives to complex flow challenges.

LIFD offers world-leading expertise and facilities to support your fellowship. Our members are from 12 schools across 4 faculties, covering the breadth of Fluid Dynamics from fundamental physics to real-world application. We have excellent High Performance Computing facilities and laboratories ranging from microfluidics to large scale medical imaging and environmental flow measurement.

We encourage fellowship holders to play a full role within LIFD, and offer opportunities for career development through involvement within the management and organisation of the institute. As a fellowship holder at Leeds you will also benefit from training and career support through your host School and the University to enable you to make the most of your fellowship. For some early career schemes there is an opportunity for successful applicants to be appointed as University Academic Fellows (UAFs) at Leeds, our flagship tenure track scheme for developing the next generation of academic leaders.

Leeds is one of the largest Universities in the UK with over 38,000 students and 8,700 staff. Our students and staff come from more than 170 countries, and we have a global network of alumni. We have a global reputation for our teaching and research, and are currently ranked in the top 100 in the QS World University Rankings 2020. We are a member of the Russell Group of Research Intensive Universities in the UK and we are a member of the Worldwide Universities Network (WUN). The University of Leeds campus is only a 10 minute walk from Leeds city centre, offering a diverse range of cultural and social activities.

Support to prepare your fellowship proposal

We are keen to enable applicants to prepare exciting and competitive fellowship proposals. Fellowship applicants will all have an academic mentor who will have relevant discipline experience and will provide guidance and support throughout the application process and once you are in Leeds if your fellowship is successful.

We offer a wide range of practical support including help with identifying funding opportunities, application support through workshops and one-to-one training, support with costing proposals, rigorous pre-application peer review and coaching and support for interview preparation.

Find out more

For details of fellowship schemes and the support offered within the University of Leeds please see https://www.leeds.ac.uk/info/2000/research_and_innovation/699/fellowships

If you are interested in developing an application, in the first instance please send your CV, an outline of your fellowship idea and any suggested mentors within LIFD to fluids-institute@leeds.ac.uk

We welcome enquiries from fellowship holders at any career stage who are interested in transferring their existing fellowship to Leeds. Please contact us at fluids-institute@leeds.ac.uk to arrange to discuss this opportunity.