British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowships

Scope and funding

The British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship offers outstanding early career researchers the opportunity to strengthen their experience of research and teaching in an academic environment. The primary emphasis is on the completion of a significant piece of publishable research, and the integration of the award holder into the community of established scholars within their field.

These awards are for applicants who do not currently hold a permanent contract and completed their viva between 1 April 2023 and 1 April 2026 (see here for full eligibility requirements).

Funding is set at full time salary for 3 years (or part-time pro-rata), as well as research expenses up to £6k over the three years.

When to apply

The call will open on 2 July 2025 on the British Academy website and will close at 17:00 BST on 1 October 2025.

• The internal support and approval process is now open, with a soft deadline to obtain approval from School Research Directors (approval stage 2) by 4pm, 1^st July 2025 to guarantee full support for candidates, although candidates can still be approved beyond this date.

How to apply through the University of Bristol

We have an internal process for all applicants wanting to apply to this scheme and be hosted by the Faculty. Those approved for submission will be given the support of Research Development (RD) in the Division of Research, Enterprise and Innovation (DREI).

1. Applicant requests a blank copy of a UoB internal British Academy outline form via this link (if you have any problems accessing the link, please contact rdo-rduk@bristol.ac.uk).
2. Applicant approaches a potential mentor at Bristol with an outline of a proposal on the DREI outline template and a combined two-page CV and publication list.
3. Approval Stage 1: The mentor will make a decision about whether to support your application. This decision is based on:
   • If the project and candidate will be competitive, given a likely success rate of less than 8%.
   • If the applicant will have publications at the point of external submission. Our feedback suggests that candidates need at least one article published or in press (and the best have at least three publications).
   • The mentor's capacity to give a strong level of support in developing the application (experience suggests that most successful applications have been developed with close support of the mentor).
   • Capacity to work with the School Research Director in September with regards to the Head of Department statement required for the application.
4. Mentor to check School-specific methods for requesting authorisation - this will either be through Research Approval Process (RAP) or to contact the School Research Director (SRD) (copying in the Head of School) to request final authorisation. Where there is no RAP process, mentors to send SRDs the outline application (with complete mentor statement), along with the 2 page combined CV and publication list. School approval must be gained by 4pm, 1^st July in order to guarantee full support for the applicant.
5. Approval Stage 2: Mentors to be informed of whether the School will support the application, either through internal RAP or via email from SRD. NOTE: while there is no institutional quota, SRDs will only authorise applications that they consider to be competitive. SRDs will also notify the Research Development team of their intention to support the application.
6. Selected applicants work up a full external application, with the support of their mentor, the School and the Research Development team. Full support can only be guaranteed if applicants obtain approval from their School (either via RAP or SRD) on or before 4pm Tuesday 1st July. Applications will be considered after that point, but it may not be possible to guarantee the full level of support offered by Bristol.
7. In previous years, applicants have been invited to attend a training day in Bristol, scheduled this year as 10am-12.30pm on Tuesday 22^nd July. This will be held online. Attendance at this session is not compulsory.
8. External submission deadline is 1 October 2025, 5pm.

Eligibility and further details

Find full eligibility guidelines and more information about the scheme on the British Academy website.

Please email rdo-rduk@bristol.ac.uk with any further questions.