ISRF Early Career Fellowship

Eligible Applicants

Scholars from within Europe (inc. UK) are eligible to apply. Applicants will normally hold a full-time or part-time salaried position – which may be permanent or fixed-term – at an Institution of Higher Education and Research. Candidates should be within 10 years of PhD award at the time of application. Career breaks may be taken into account. The awards are intended to provide full relief from all teaching duties and all associated academic administration for a period of (up to) one year. However, independent scholars or individuals not currently in an academic role may also apply.

There is no limitation on nationality – however, we are unable to consider applications from those whose home institution is not within Europe.

Should buy-out funding not be administratively viable or appropriate, non-UK based applicants should contact ISRF to discuss other ways that a Fellowship award could be administered in the context of their local academic/administrative requirements.

Candidates who wish to apply as Independent Scholars will need to identify a potential host institution and may need to apply for a stipendiary award rather than a contract buy-out. Please check our FAQs before contacting a member of ISRF administrative staff with queries on this issue.

Eligible Research

The ISRF wishes to support independent-minded researchers to explore and present original research ideas which take new approaches, and suggest new solutions, to real world social problems.

Proposed research should break with existing explanatory frameworks so as to address afresh empirical problems with no currently adequate theory or investigative methodology. Innovation may also come from controversial theoretical approaches motivated by critical challenge of incumbent theories.

Interdisciplinarity in the generation of new investigative initiatives may be achieved by combining, cross-fertilising, and so transforming empirical methods and theoretical insights from the social sciences. Projects ranging across the breadth of the social scientific disciplines and interdisciplinary research fields are welcome, and relevant applications from scholars working within the humanities are also encouraged.

Duration & Timing

The awards are intended as providing full relief from all teaching duties and all associated academic administration for a period of up to one year, and must commence no later than end of January 2026.

Value The amount of an award depends on the nature of the work proposed and individual circumstances – the ISRF expects applications for grants up to a maximum of €81,500 (or £67,500 for UK-based applicants) to buy-out the cost of all teaching and associated administration in the applicant’s home institution for up to 12 months. Within that sum, reasonable support for research expenses may be considered on a matched-funding basis with the host Institution.

Applicants based in the UK must apply in GBP (£), up to the limit of £67,500. All other applicants must apply in EUR (€), up to the limit of €81,500 (this will not be adjusted in the event of GBP/EUR currency fluctuations).

For further information, Terms & Conditions of award, and to apply, please click on the ‘Apply’ button above.

The closing date for applications is 5pm GMT (6pm CET) on 14th February 2025.