Postdoctoral Funding Opportunities

QMUL’s School of Languages, Linguistics and Film has sustained success in securing postdoctoral funding through a range of schemes. The School has a vibrant research culture across its departments: Comparative Literature and Culture; Film Studies; Linguistics; Modern Languages and Cultures; and the Language Centre, which has a research culture in Applied Linguistics. 

School staff take part in a wide range of department-based and interdisciplinary seminars, and are active within a number of research centres within and beyond the School. Researchers within the School also benefit from the interdisciplinary research, knowledge exchange and funding opportunities of QMUL’s Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences.

We would be delighted to hear from postdoctoral candidates working in relevant subject areas who are considering applying for a fellowship, including the schemes listed below, and would be happy to offer support in preparing applications. Initial enquiries should be directed to members of staff closest to your research interests (email addresses are available on the departmental sections of our website).

Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowships

Outstanding postdoctoral scholars who have not yet held a full-time permanent academic post are encouraged to apply to the Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowships. Details of the scheme, including eligibility criteria, can be found here: www.leverhulme.ac.uk/early-career-fellowships.

Our current Leverhulme Early Career Fellows are Dr Peter Budrin, Dr Gemma Tidman, Dr Hannah Jane Middleton and Dr Nikolaus Perneczky.

We would be delighted to hear from postdoctoral candidates working in relevant subject areas who are considering applying to the postdoctoral scheme, and would be happy to offer support in preparing applications. Initial enquiries should be directed to members of staff closest to your research interests (email addresses are available on our website). Applications should be submitted by 5pm on 8 November 2024 to sta-research@qmul.ac.uk

Expressions of Interest should:

1. Demonstrate that the applicant meets the Leverhulme Trust’s eligibility requirements, set out at: www.leverhulme.ac.uk/early‐career‐fellowships. Please state in a series of bullet points how the applicant meets the Trust’s eligibility
   requirements.
2. Include an academic CV of not more than 2 pages to demonstrate the research track record of the applicant.
3. Include an outline research proposal including title, non-technical abstract (250 words), statement of past and current research (250 words) and 2 page (A4) project outline. The project outline should include aims, objectives, methodology and outcome (e.g. publication plans). It should make clear the scope and importance of the proposal. The methodology should be clear and explicit, comprehensible to a non-expert.

The School will announce which candidates it will be putting forward by 4 December 2024. We will then work with our applicants to finalise submissions for the Leverhulme Trust deadline of 20 February 2025. For any enquiries about the application process, please contact sta-research@qmul.ac.uk.

British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowships

These fellowships enable early career researchers in the humanities or social sciences to pursue an independent research project, towards the completion of a significant piece of publishable research, and are tenable for three years. See the British Academy website for details: www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/postdoctoral-fellowships/

You can read about the research of our current BA Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr Jiří Anger, here.

The deadline to receive expressions of interest for the 2024-25 Postdoctoral Fellowships has now passed. We will announce details of how to apply for the 2025-26 round on this page in July 2025. If you have any questions about the internal selection process, please contact Huw Jones, the School's Research Manager, at huw.jones@qmul.ac.uk.

Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships

SLLF also welcomes expressions of interest to the European Commission MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships. This scheme enables talented researchers with up to eight years of full-time research since their PhD award date to carry out a research project, acquire new skills and benefit from a short term secondment at another institution. As a mobility programme, the MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships allow researchers to develop their career in a country that they have not lived or worked in for 12 months in the three years before the call deadline. Applications are made with a well-matched QMUL supervisor.

Details of how to submit an expression of interest to SLLF will be published on this page when the next call opens in April 2024. For enquiries about the scheme, please contact Vicky Byers, Senior EU Partnerships Manager.