UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships Round 9
Round 9 has now closed to applications. The process to request support from Imperial for Round 10, is expected launch in early 2025.
Background
UK Research and Innovation Future Leaders Fellowships (UKRI FLFs) are an exciting new opportunity to join Imperial. This scheme intends to grow the strong supply of talented individuals needed to ensure that UK research and innovation continues to be world class. These Fellowships support applicants from diverse career paths, including those returning from a career break or following time in other roles. UKRI encourages a broad range of applicants to include diversity of backgrounds, career paths, research areas, thought and approach as well as protected characteristics.
Fellowships are not restricted to work that would be seen as formal research in an applicant's chosen area but can also lead and develop innovation. FLF applications can be submitted within or across any area(s) of research and/or innovation covered by UKRI, from basic through to applied research and innovation.
Applications to UKRI where the fellowship is intended to be held at Imperial must be made via the College to ensure you have approved support from the proposed host Department.
More information about this fellowship can be found on the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships webpage.
Holding a FLF at Imperial
At Imperial we encourage a diverse range of applicants and are therefore using an open selection process to identify individuals to support in applying to this funding opportunity. All interested candidates, both external and internal, must complete an online application form, which will be shared with the relevant department to consider. Applicants will be contacted directly by the relevant academic department in order to establish the level of support available.
We are committed to equality of opportunity, to eliminating discrimination and to creating an inclusive working environment for all. We therefore encourage candidates to apply irrespective of age, disability, marriage or civil partnership status, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion and belief, gender identity, sex, or sexual orientation. We are an Athena SWAN Silver Award winner, a Disability Confident Leader, A Race Equality Charter Bronze Award winner and a Stonewall Diversity Champion.
The College is a proud signatory to the San-Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), which means that in hiring, promotion and research funding decisions we will evaluate applicants on the quality of their work, not the impact factor of the journal where it is published. More information is available on the research evaluation webpage.
Applying
These fellowships are for early career academics and innovators who are transitioning to or establishing independence. Applicants should view the UKRI's person specification (Annex A of the UKRI Round 9 guidance (pdf) to assess and justify their suitability for the scheme.
Applicants are expected to hold a doctorate by the start date of the fellowship, however there are no eligibility rules based on years since PhD or whether the applicant currently holds a permanent/open-ended academic position or job role. Applicants who have already achieved research/innovation independence (for example, by securing funding aimed at this career stage) will not be competitive.
- Contact your Department of interest as early as possible for initial discussions (some Departments have specific strategic research areas they want to recruit in - see the sections below for details - or local processes)
Complete the short online application by 18 March, midday and upload where indicated within the form:
- CV (max 2 pages), include hyperlinks to publications.
- Completed Imperial UKRI FLF Request for Support form (doc) (Max 3 page, the guidance text provided for each section may be deleted if required)
- Submitted Request for Support forms and CVs will be shared with the relevant departments for consideration. Incomplete forms will not be considered.
Useful information
- Where multiple submissions are made to the online application form, the last complete submission will be taken as the final version.
- If you use the same device and browser, you can resume a partly finished application rather than start from the beginning.
- Online application form content:
- Name and email
- Current position and institution/employer
- PhD awarded/expected date
- Project title
- Project area of research/innovation and most closely related UKRI council
- Proposed host department
- Demographic information (voluntary disclosure)
- We encourage candidates to get in touch with Departments prior to the internal deadline so they can provide support with the development of proposals. There will be no opportunity to amend or improve proposals once submitted for the 18 March deadline.
- Applicants will be contacted by departments to discuss their request for support.
- Faculties will work with departments to shortlist their chosen candidates. Please note there will be no opportunity to amend proposals based on Faculty/Department feedback at this stage. College will be reviewing all shortlisted applications based on original submissions.
- A final central panel will select the 8 candidates Imperial is permitted to support. Final decisions will be communicated by mid-May
- Chosen candidates will be supported to apply to UKRI.
- Full stage - deadline 18 June (letter of support from College required)
Imperial Departments
UKRI view it positively when the host institution makes clear statements about how the candidate may fit into their strategic vision/commitment to the specific research area. To facilitate this, individuals interested in applying for a FLF hosted at Imperial should initially approach their department of interest as soon as possible to ensure their research aligns to its strategic aims. Some departments have also declared particular areas in which they would be willing to host a fellow, or might have local processes for this scheme prior to the central application.
Note: Departments in the Faculty of Engineering are limiting their shortlisting to two candidates each. Please get in touch with your proposed host department as soon as possible to check their local shortlist selection process.
Faculty of Engineering
The Department is willing to accept enquiries related to all relevant research areas, with a particular interest in Sustainable Aviation Technologies, Scientific Machine Learning and data-driven Aerospace Engineering, and Sustainable, Lightweight or Smart Structures” (General contact - Sian Haynes)
The Department will only be considering applications from internal academic staff (including the current independent fellows) and the candidates who have secured host support for independent fellowship applications in all relevant research areas.
To obtain the host support commitment, the department holds independent fellowship support selection annually, which is currently open until 28 February 2024. To be considered for this selection, please see the instructions here: www.imperial.ac.uk/bioengineering/research/opportunities-within-the-bioengineering-department/research-fellowships-/independent-fellowships/.
(General contact - Bioengineering Fellowship Support Team)
The Department will only be considering applications from permanent internal academic staff (General contact – Anusha Sri-Pathmanathan)
The Department is willing to accept enquiries related to the following strategic research topics:
- Resilient and secure built environment including monitoring and sensing of structures and infrastructure, innovative materials, extreme loads and reliability, safe & secure infrastructure, clean water and sanitation.
- Connected efficient citiesincluding intelligent systems, digital twins for the built environment, healthy cities, network complexity and interdependencies of urban services, adaptation to climate change.
- Engineering net zero and beyondincluding renewable energy, low carbon materials for the built environment, managing infrastructure life-cycles, healthy, energy-neutral buildings, recycling and reuse of materials and waste, advanced construction methods, accelerating the shift to zero emissions vehicles.
- Sustainable natural environment including quantifying climate sensitivities, coastal erosion and sea level rise, pollution mitigation, management of natural resources.
We are also interested in projects developing A.I. for civil engineering applications.
Interested applicants must contact Dr Khaled Taalab k.taalab@imperial.ac.uk as soon as possible and no later than 6th March 2024.
The Department is willing to accept enquiries related to all relevant research areas (General contact – Alastair Donaldson)
Faculty of Engineering 2
- Design Engineering
- Earth Science & Engineering
- Electrical & Electronic
- Materials
- Mechanical Engineering
The Department is willing to accept enquiries related to all relevant research areas (General contact – Wu, Billy billy.wu@imperial.ac.uk)
The Department will only be considering applications from internal academic staff in all relevant research areas (General contact - Matt Jackson)
The Department is willing to accept enquiries related to all relevant research areas (General contact - Rob Millwood)
The Department is willing to accept enquiries related to all relevant research areas (General contact – Brittany Rae)
The Department is willing to accept enquiries related to the following strategic research topics:
- Affordable and Clean Energy, including: future vehicle technology, propulsion, drive trains, lightweight construction; power generation, net zero, thermal management, nuclear power.
- Responsible Consumption and Production, including: sustainable manufacturing, environmentally friendly materials, recycling and life cycles; infrastructure, life extension, fire mitigation.
- Good Health and Wellbeing, including: medical robotics, imaging, sensing, affordable healthcare.
(General contact - Nina Hancock)
Faculty of Medicine
The Department is willing to accept enquiries related to all relevant research areas (General contact - Celia Monteiro Domingues)
The Department is willing to accept enquiries related to all relevant research areas (General contact - Chrystalla Orphanides)
The Department is willing to accept enquiries related to all relevant research areas (General contact - Celia Monteiro Domingues)
The Department is willing to accept enquiries related to all relevant research areas (General contact – Jamie Meredith)
Faculty of Medicine
The Department is willing to accept enquiries related to all relevant research areas (General contact - Chrystalla Orphanides)
The Department is willing to accept enquiries to all relevant research areas (General contact - Alun Owen)
The Department is willing to accept enquiries related to all relevant research areas (General contact - Lyndsey Pallant)
The Department is willing to accept enquiries related to all relevant research areas, please ensure you have contacted the relevant Head of Division before starting an application (General contact - Rita Carvalho)
Faculty of Natural Sciences
The Department will only be considering applications from internal candidates in all relevant research areas (General contact - Anca Gourlay)
The Department is willing to accept enquiries related to the research areas listed below (General contact - Sarah Al-Beidh)
- ML/AI for Drug Discovery and Chemical Biology
- ML/AI and Physical Methods for Catalysis, Synthesis, and Materials
- Digital Chemistry and Automation
- Green Chemistry / Sustainable Chemistry
- Organic Synthesis
The Department is willing to accept enquiries related to all relevant research areas 0 (General contact - Erhard Hohenester (e.hohenester@imperial.ac.uk)
The Department is willing to accept enquiries related to all relevant research areas (General contact - Rusudan Svanidze)
The Department will only be considering applications from internal academic staff in all relevant research areas (General contact - Louise Hayward)
Business School
The Business School (Departments of Finance; Economics and Public Policy; Management & Entrepreneurship; Analytics, Marketing and Operations) is willing to accept enquiries related to all relevant research areas (General contact - David Wilson)
Contact us
For further information and any queries please contact:
