Applying for Research Fellowships

We are constantly searching for outstanding researchers who are enthusiastic about interdisciplinary projects. We are keen to support early-career researchers wishing to apply for fellowships (such as Royal Society or Research Council fellowships) that will allow them to establish their independent research career. If you are interested in applying for a research fellowship and joining the Department of Chemical Engineering & Biotechnology, please follow the instructions below for submitting an expression of interest. You will also need to check the internal deadlines in the department.  

We have different routes for senior and junior fellowships. For senior fellowships (i.e. fellowships typically requiring at least three years of postdoctoral experience and intended to allow you to be a Principal Investigator and supervise PhD students), we run an internal selection panel once a year to decide which applications we will support for submission to the sponsors. We invite prospective applicants – those already here and those wishing to move to Cambridge – to submit an expression of interest for the panel to consider. The deadline for submitting an expression of interest is 1 March.

For junior fellowships (usually a first or second postdoctoral position), applications do not need to go to a panel. Instead, applicants should contact potential supervisors to discuss their proposal, and for a member of academic staff to agree to act as supervisor, before approving the application for submission to a sponsor.

For further information about fellowships, please contact us at research.fellowships@ceb.cam.ac.uk.

Research Fellowships Guidance Notes

CEB is keen to support early-career researchers who wish to apply for research fellowships that will allow them to establish their independent research careers. Due to physical space and resources limitations, we cannot support all the applicants and therefore we use a preliminary, internal selection process to decide which applications will be approved for submission to the sponsor. We are particularly looking for candidates who align with, and strengthen, our strategic impact areas and are willing to involve themselves in department activities.

Senior fellowships

These fellowships usually require at least three years of post-doctoral experience, where the sponsor provides funding for the fellow's salary and research costs. These senior fellowships make the fellow eligible to apply for other external funding as a Principal Investigator and to supervise PhD students and appoint post-docs to form the nucleus of an independent research group. This category includes Royal Society University Research Fellows, Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellows, BBSRC David Phillips Fellows, EPSRC Early Career Fellows, NERC Independent Fellows, MRC Career Development Fellows, Wellcome Trust Sir Henry Dale Fellows, Royal Academy of Engineering Fellows and equivalents.

Potential applicants must submit an expression of interest (EoI), by 1 March, well before a sponsor's published deadline. EoIs will be considered by a Department-wide panel which meets in March every year, and selected applicants will be invited to give a seminar in the week following the end of Lent term.

The EoI must include:

1. CV and publications list (up to 2 pages)
2. Research proposal (up to 4 pages)
3. Statement of the resources that will be required (space, staff, equipment, facilities, consumables)
4. Cover letter saying why the Department of Chemical Engineering & Biotechnology in Cambridge is the best suited to your proposed research, and indicating which fellowship scheme(s) you wish to apply for.

EoIs must be submitted by email to research.fellowships@ceb.cam.ac.uk by 1 March. Only one EoI is needed in each application round regardless of the number of schemes you wish to be considered for, unless you propose significantly different projects for each sponsor. Applicants are responsible for checking both their eligibility for each fellowship scheme and sponsor deadlines so that they can determine when to submit their EoI. In each round, following an initial pre-selection based on the EoIs received, applicants will be asked to give a seminar and may be called for interview. We aim to complete the selection of candidates for seminar within 2 weeks of the EoI deadline.

For successful applicants, we will provide support to improve their application, and to prepare for external interviews. There may be additional internal University competition deadlines that will be communicated to supported applicants.

Junior fellowships

These fellowships are usually a first or second post-doctoral position, where the fellow is tied to an existing research group, directly supervised by one of our academic staff, and funds provide only the fellow's salary and research costs. This category includes EC Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellows, BBSRC Discovery Fellows, EPSRC Post-Doctoral Fellows, MRC Skills Development Fellows, Sir Henry Wellcome Fellows, Royal Society Newton International Fellows, Leverhulme Early Career Fellows, Cambridge College Research Fellowships, and their equivalents.

In this case, applications do not go to a Department panel. Applicants must contact potential supervisors to discuss their proposal, and a member of academic staff must agree to act as supervisor before the application can be approved for submission to a sponsor. Research interests of all academic staff can be found on our website.

Once approval for submission has been given, the Department's finance team must be contacted (grants@ceb.cam.ac.uk), so that a full financial costing can be prepared in the X5 form. All grant applications must be completely ready for submission to the sponsor no later than seven working days before the sponsor's published deadline. This is to allow sufficient time for the application to be formally approved by the Department and University central administration before submission to the sponsor.

Please, note this is not an exhaustive list of fellowships that we support. If you are interested in applying, make sure you check the deadlines in the sponsors' websites.

If you have any queries about fellowships or our selection procedures, please contact research.fellowships@ceb.cam.ac.uk.