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UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships Round 9

Scheme aims and eligibility

UKRI is looking to fund fellowships of up to 7 years to support talented researchers and innovators who are transitioning to research or innovation leadership.  The scheme aims to:

• develop, retain, attract and sustain research and innovation talent in the UK
• foster new research and innovation career paths including those at the academic, business and interdisciplinary boundaries, and facilitate movement of people between sectors
• provide sustained funding and resources for the best early career researchers and innovators
• provide long-term, flexible funding to tackle difficult and novel challenges, and support adventurous, ambitious programmes

Applications are welcome from the entirity of the UKRI remit. 

UKRI is deliberately vague about the career level, or years post-PhD, that applicants should have reached.  They merely state that applicants must have a PhD or relevant experience and must be able to demonstrate that they have not yet achieved research/innovation independence and thought leadership.  What is clear from the guidance is that applicants should have an outstanding track record, relative to their level of experience, and their accomplishments should be beyond the level normally expected of someone at their career stage.

UKRI note that the strongest applications are those which are best able to demonstrate how the scale, flexibility and duration of a FLF will add value to both the research and the researcher’s career, in a way that no other source of funding could. FLFs are potentially 7 years and as such the research proposal should be ambitious in scale and beyond that of a regular grant proposal.   

The Round 9 guidance will be available once the call opens at the end of February, howeverm before that date you can assess your suitability by reading the Round 8 Guidance for academic hosted applicants.

Funding and school commitment

Funding is for 7 years available on a 4+3 model with a review in year 4.  

Funds can cover usual research council project costs including the Fellow’s salary. There is no minimum or maximum project cost and UKRI is currently supporting FLFs ranging from £300k to £2M.

In order to demonstrate institutional support to the Fellowship, the host School is required to commit to an increased percentage of the Fellow’s salary and to the individual securing an open-ended position at the end of their fellowship.  

As in previous rounds, institutional support will be an important component of these fellowships.  Schools could consider the following: mentorship and coaching, access to networks, potential collaborators; professional development and training opportunities; access to equipment, facilities and space; and PhD studentships to be linked to the FLF programme of work.

Internal selection process & expression of interest form

UKRI introduced institutional quotas in Round 7 and Sussex is able to submit up to 4 applications.  There will be a two-stage selection process, first at school level,  followed by a central panel, chaired by the Deputy Pro-Vice-Chancellor Research.

Each School is invited to submit up to 3 candidates for consideration by the University’s central review panel.  When considering how many applications to submit, we would encourage Schools to think carefully about the readiness and competitiveness of potential nominees.

The deadline for Schools to submit their nominations, on the Internal Expression of Interest form, is 12 Noon, Friday 5 April 2024. Please note this form includes a statement of support from the Head of School. 

The central review panel will be interdisciplinary so applicants should remember that their proposal will not be reviewed by experts in their field.  The central review panel may include external academics but will primarily draw on the expertise of Sussex colleagues who have been involved in the FLF scheme as either a peer reviewer, a panel member, or an awardee.

Inclusive selection and diversity monitoring

For the last 2 FLF rounds host organisations were asked to provide a statement describing the inclusive selection process used to select candidates.  These statements contributed to a an external review undertaken by the Careers Research and Advisory Centre titled Inclusive selection and support for the Future Leaders Fellowships scheme – Investigation of current practice and identification of good practice examples.

As part of the UKRI response (PDF, 200KB) to this report, host institutions – before they can submit any FLF round 9 bids - must complete a mandatory diversity monitoring template to provide anonymised information on the number of prospective applicants by sex and gender, ethnicity, disability, and broad disciplinary groupings. This information needs to be collected on all potential applicants who express an interest in applying and not just those selected by the School or the University. In order to collect this information, we would like candidates to complete a Diversity Monitoring Questionnaire.  This information will be treated in the strictest of confidence and will be used solely for the purpose of completing the anonymous institution-level FLF monitoring form - the information will not be used by the University of UKRI in the assessment of proposals.

All interested candidates are asked to contact Debbie Foy who will provide access to the diversity monitoring questionnaire.

Application timetable 

Internal deadline   School selected applications to be submitted to research.initiatives@sussex.ac.uk	12 Noon, Friday 5th April 2024
Internal panel meets to review bids	w/c 29 April 2024
Decision communicated to applicants and Schools	w/e 3 May 2024
UKRI deadline	18 June 2024

Further information and RES contacts

School nominated applicants should complete the internal Expression of Interest form.  

Applications must be submitted via the School on behalf of the potential applicant to research.initiatives@sussex.ac.uk by 12 Noon on 5 April 2024.  Applications received after this deadline will not be accepted.

If you have queries about the internal demand management process please contact Debbie Foy in Research and Enterprise.  Questions about the FLF scheme and candidate suitability should be directed to your School's Research Development Manager in RES.

Further information is available on the UKRI website.