UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) have announced round 9 of the Future Leader Fellowships (FLF). These prestigious fellowships are for early career researchers who are transitioning to or establishing independence.

The fellowship offers flexibility to support outstanding individuals and is open to researchers from all disciplines including researchers who are: 

  • from diverse career backgrounds
  • returning from a career break or returning to research or innovation following time in other roles
  • wishing to work part-time or in job shares in order to combine the fellowship with personal responsibilities
  • coming to the UK from abroad

As the numbers of applications to previous rounds increased, UKRI put in place demand management measures to restrict the number of applications each university can submit. Here at University of Portsmouth, we will be undertaking an inclusive selection process to identify 3 applicants to submit to this call. When the details and timing of this internal process are available we will communicate this through the usual channels. In addition, if you would like to receive emails directly, please sign up to our internal FLF mailing list. 

The call will officially open in February with a deadline expected towards the summer. There is some guidance on the call page already and this will be updated as it becomes available.  

We would like to take this opportunity to encourage prospective applicants to explore the call requirements and to assess their suitability against the ‘person specification’ annex in the ‘guidance for academic-hosted applicants’.

You may find it useful to see who has been awarded an FLF in the past; here are the awardees from the last round and the UKRI database of fellows.

Here are some internal resources (you must be logged into your University Google account to access them): 

  • Guidance on our Fellowships page including:
    • A Funding Insight for round 8 – this will be updated once round 9 guidance is available;  
    • Slides and recording from our fellowships event (January 2023) including a session with Laura Nuttall, from our Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, who was awarded an FLF in round 3; 
  • Guidance from the UKRI FLF Development Network on preparing your application;  
  • An example* of a successful UKRI FLF bid in our Successful Bid Library. *please note that the application format will be different for this round as the application will go through UKRIs new application system, The Funding Service (TFS).