The Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship is a highly prestigious post-doctoral award for researchers who are near the start of their career. The Leverhulme Trust provides only half of the salary of each ECF over a three-year period, the other half of the salary must be provided by the institution at which the grant will be held.  

The Isaac Newton Trust (INT) will offer funding to match the Leverhulme award in support of individuals who successfully apply for Leverhulme Early Career Fellowships to be held at the University of Cambridge in the year commencing October 2024. There is a preliminary internal competition to identify a subset of candidates to be offered INT support subject to their being successful in the national stage of the Leverhulme competition.

Please note that Leverhulme caps its contribution to salary + on-costs at £26k in any one year and INT matches this. On this basis, candidates should be aware at the outset that salaries for LECFs will generally start at the low end of the Postdoctoral Research Associate Grade 7 range. INT believes this is consistent with the Leverhulme Trusts eligibility rules that limit the time a candidate can be from submitting their PhD.

Applications for the internal competition (to be sent to the Head of Department by 12pm on 23^rd October)

An application for the internal competition consists of:

• a cover sheet available from the Isaac Newton Trust website
• a brief c.v. (not exceeding two sides), and
• a draft of the three items required for the Leverhulme application:

1. a list of your major publications (maximum one side)
2. a statement of your current research (maximum 250 words) and
3. a detailed statement of your proposed research (maximum two sides).

References

• Two letters of reference are needed, of which one should come from outside Cambridge (note that the national stage of the Leverhulme competition requires a third reference as well, but this is not necessary for the internal INT competition)
• Please ask your referees to send their letters directly to the host Department/Institute by their deadline (see below), not to the Isaac Newton Trust.

Deadlines

• Please submit the application to the Head of Department (cpc12@cam.ac.uk) by 12pm on 23^rd October 2023
• The Department will send their ranked list of applicants and supported applications to the Isaac Newton Trust to arrive no later than 17^th November 2023
• The Trust will inform selected candidates and their hosts in good time to apply for a Leverhulme award by the national deadline of 22^nd February 2024 at 4pm

Full guidance notes and eligibility criteria can be found at https://www.newtontrust.cam.ac.uk/ECFs/LeverhulmeECF/Leverhulmeapps.