College of Science & Engineering

Postdoctoral approval/support process 

To ensure applicants receive appropriate support and to ensure the quality of Fellowship proposals all applicants must follow the process detailed below.

This information covers:

• The difference between a Fellowship proposal and a research project proposal
• The annual schedule of the main fellowship schemes – these are primarily Postdoctoral fellowships.
• The processes for Post-doctoral and senior applicants
• The template for Post-doctoral applicants
• Details of the support available for Fellowship applicants from the College of Science & Engineering.

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The difference between a Fellowship proposal and a Research project proposal

A Fellowship proposal should be multi-faceted. In addition to the research programme, applicants will have identified training and development needs to achieve their academic and personal goals. Fellowships are awarded based on the strength of the candidate as well as the research vision – a fellowship is an investment in the person.

A research proposal is self-contained with clearly defined objectives and outcomes.

It is expected that preparing a strong Fellowship application will take most people approximately four months, so please factor this, and any deadlines, into your planning.

No application should be submitted without input and support from both your School and from the College.

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Annual schedule of the main fellowship schemes

Here you will find details of the main fellowship schemes and links to the funder webpages/guidance.

• Annual Schedule for Fellowship Opportunities

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Postdoctoral and Early Career Fellowship approval/support process

1. The CoSE Fellowship Process

   Every submission for funding requires support from the College Research Support Office (CRSO) through the College Research Development Managers (RDMs) and Project Coordinators (PCs). Fellowship applicants will be assigned a PC and RDM to support submission. Engaging early is key to ensuring the right support is in place, and we follow processes designed to ensure fair and transparent identification of competitive candidates. A fellowship is often an applicant’s first attempt to secure funding for their research, time and support is built in to help you through the process.

   We have created a comprehensive list of  Funding Opportunities, including Fellowships, here. You can use this as a guide to identifying any relevant fellowships you may wish to target. There are two sub-types of fellowship opportunity we support – those that follow our standard fellowship process, and those that are demand/quality managed.

   Standard process

   To ensure competitive applicants, we have a standard process to secure school and College approval.

   Stage 1 – Complete our fellowship template including a statement from your supporting academic, and submit to scieng-submit@glasgow.ac.uk along with a short CV. Full details for this part of the process are online as part of our guidance – this should be a dynamic conversation between the applicant and supporting academic.

   Stage 2 – We will pass your template and CV to your School Director of Research to ask for their approval. This support is important as, if successful, you will transition to become an academic staff member of the School you intend to join.

   Stage 3 – Once support from the School Director of Research is secured, the CoSE Research Support Office will let you know and discuss next steps with you, including how you will be supported.

   This support will include developing costings to support your fellowship application, ensuring aspects of governance are adhered to, feedback and support in developing your research idea, and support in submitting your Lord Kelvin Adam Smith Leadership Fellowship application.

   Below is a list of fellowship schemes that this process applies to, either because we have supported these before or are aware that they are relevant to our colleagues in CoSE. If the fellowship does not appear here, please check with the CoSE Research Development team through scieng-submit@glasgow.ac.uk.

   NERC Independent Research Fellowship	Wellcome Early Career Award
   Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship	Royal Society Career Development Fellowship
   EPSRC Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Fellowship	EPSRC Mathematical Sciences Open and Open Plus Fellowship
   UKRI Daphne Jackson Fellowship	RAEng IC Postdoctoral Research Fellowship
   Wellcome Career Development Award	Huo Early Career Fellowship
   Vivensa Early Career Postdoctoral Fellowship	Brain Research UK Postdoctoral Fellowship
   UKRI Metascience AI Early Career Fellowship	BBSRC Discovery Fellowship
   British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship	Royal Astronomical Society Norman Lockyer Fellowship

    

   This list is subject to change as more opportunities are identified, and more specific calls come under quality management processes.

   Quality managed process

   For an increasing number of fellowship opportunities, we run a process of demand/quality management to select a capped number of applicants (either defined by the College or by the funder themselves). These fellowship opportunities are promoted throughout the year directly by email and also in the Research and Funding News email; interested colleagues and supporting academics should look out for communications advertising these. The list below provides a rough timeline. To apply for these, you will usually complete our fellowship template and submit that, along with a short CV, by a fixed deadline.

   If you are selected through the process for these schemes there is a managed process for all applicants through to submission. You will be informed on who will support you from the CRSO (your PC and RDM) and reminded of the schedule to submission – these dates help ensure that candidates submit competitive applications and that we have enough time to get all necessary approvals in place. In some calls we encourage cohort-based peer-to-peer support.

   The list below outlines the current group of fellowship opportunities that we run a quality management process for. We expect that these will expand in the future as other schemes increase in popularity.

   Fellowship	Funder deadline	CoSE process
   Royal Society Newton International Fellowship	March 2026	January 2026
   RAEng IC Fellowship	April 2026	January 2026
   RAEng Research Fellowship	September 2026*	March 2026*
   Royal Society University Research Fellowship	September 2026	April/May 2026
   STFC Ernest Rutherford Fellowship	October 2026	April/May 2026‡
   Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 Fellowship	January 2027	September 2026
   Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship	February 2027	September 2026
   UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship	June 2026	December 2025

   * RAEng are currently reviewing their process, and we expect these dates to change.

   ‡ Selection of candidates is run through the Schools of Physics and Astronomy and Geographical and Earth Sciences.

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Experienced researchers intending to apply for a Fellowship

It is strongly recommended that experienced researchers/Professors request feedback from colleagues before submitting a fellowship application. You should also advise the Research Development Team that you intend to apply for a fellowship. Ideally the team would be given a few weeks to be able to provide feedback.

The RD team will provide support around elements of the proposal such as Career Development, Advocacy, Narrative CV and Impact. They will also work with you to develop a letter of support.

* Where the external fellowship requests a Narrative CV as part of the application process, we do not expect a narrative CV to be provided with the completed template, unless you already have one prepared.

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Support available from UofG / CoSE for potential fellowship candidates

• Fellowship seminars – College Research Support and Research Development run events Nov/Dec to raise awareness of opportunities, requirements and have case studies from successful fellows.
• Contact the Research Development Managers at any time to discuss opportunities and requirements.
• Examples of successful proposals are provided to applicants (RAEng, URF, Leverhulme, EPSRC)
• CoSE PDRA Fellowship peer mentoring programme – runs Jan-May. This gives potential candidates the opportunity to develop a proposal and get feedback. Since 2015, of 120 participants 31 fellowships were awarded, and 28 participants have secured lectureships.
• There are hints and tips documents for applicant: for track record, for fellowship applications, for general grant writing.
• We have template letters of support for RAEng, RS URF, EPSRC, RAEng Intelligence Community fellowships, UKRI Quantum Fellowships.
• The Research Development team works with candidates providing iterative feedback on their applications.
• Embedding impact in your research proposal – focuses on EPSRC research proposals.
• Embedding career development in your research proposal – crucial to Fellowship applications. Seminar delivered by Elizabeth Adams and Katrina Gardner, Careers Manager.
• If applicants are successful and invited to an interview, they will be provided with Pitch Training and mock interviews.
• Candidates applying for 3year+ fellowships can apply for Lord Kelvin Adam Smith Leadership funding which provides £110k of additional funding for the fellowship. In some instances, e.g. Leverhulme Trust Fellowships, LKAS is required as matched funding if the external fellowship isn’t fully funded/has a salary cap.
• The content for the Early Career Development Programme is available to all ECRs, PDRAs and PhDs – this covers general information on fellowships, writing proposals, planning your career, engaging with industry, with policy makers and government, Public Engagement and Impact, IP and commercialisation, Responsible Innovation… view the programme.

If you are interested in applying for a fellowship but are not ready to submit a template, please get in touch with the Research Development Team so that they can share upcoming events/workshops with you. Contact scieng-submit@glasgow.ac.uk

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Enterprise Fellowships

Enterprise Fellowships provide researchers and recent graduates with the skills confidence and expertise to become better entrepreneurs. They normally feature tailored training, coaching, and mentorship from experienced innovators and will cover everything required in market strategy, communication, market validation, sales, and fundraising to be successful.

Typically Enterprise Fellowships are run as part of a cohort from other institutions, are supported by expert advisors and will expand your network through interactions with a global ecosystem of Fellows, investors, and industry leaders. They are normally 12 months in length and require full focus on the business opportunity.

Currently the Royal Society of Engineering run two calls per year for Enterprise Fellowships and RAI run an annual call for UKRI  Enterprise Fellowships in Responsible AI

For advice and support in applying for an Enterprise Fellowship please contact COSE Innovation you will also need to get in touch with the University IP and Commercialisation Team who can provide an institutional letter of support as well as advice on IP protection and commercialisation strategy.

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Contact

Anyone with questions about the process or individual fellowships should contact the Research Development Managers by emailing scieng-submit@glasgow.ac.uk 

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Information for supporting academics - College Fellowships Process

The College of Science and Engineering expects each fellowship applicant to have a supporting academic who will ‘mentor/champion’ them through the application process.

If you are asked to become a supporting academic for a PDRA or ECR applying for a fellowship this document outlines what will be expected of you and provides some help to provide guidance and input to the candidate.

The aim of having a supporting academic for each candidate is to ensure the quality of each application we submit, and to provide a realistic appraisal and guidance to the candidate if there are areas they need to address before being ready for a fellowship proposal.

We need to address the number of fellowship applications coming forward that are not competitive for funding. The supporting academic has a crucial role in managing the expectations of the applicants.

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The role of the supporting academic

College fellowship application process:

1. Discuss the candidate’s ideas for the fellowship and their future career plans – do these align with the fellowship scheme? a)We have created a document “Fellowship conversations” to help with this process. b) There is also a hints and tips for fellowship applications, is the candidate addressing these aspects in their plans?
2. Review their fellowship template – do you believe that their proposal has a high chance of success? a) Is the research they intend to undertake likely to be transformative? b) This is a key question, the Research Development Team, the Directors of Research can review a proposal and determine if it is well written but it is important that an academic close to the candidate’s field of research can determine if the research will be truly transformative.
3. Is the candidate a potential future research leader? a) Have they demonstrated leadership/management skills? b) This could be taking the lead on organising an event, identifying skills gaps in their CV and seeking the necessary training or experience, and would they be able to articulate their leadership potential in a candidate interview?
4. Supporting academic statement. a) Once you have discussed the candidate’s plans and reviewed and provided input to their fellowship application template – if you are supportive of their application please provide a statement of why you are supportive, focusing on the transformative nature of the planned research and the candidate’s suitability as a fellow. b) Submit the completed template to the school contact as per the college process. b) The school contact will review the template and advise if they are supportive of the candidate proceeding with the fellowship application, and an application for the Lord Kelvin Adam Smith Leadership Fellowships (University support of up to £100k for external fellowship applicants).

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The full application process

If approved to proceed the candidate will be allocated a Project Coordinator (PC) and a Research Development (RD) contact will support them with costings and guidance on the process, and input to the application.

As supporting academic you should provide input on the research aspects of the proposal, and general guidance on writing funding applications. The Research Development team will contribute to ensure the career development, impact, advocacy (where relevant) aspects are addressed appropriately.

It is expected that the supporting academic, the PC and RD will work as a team to guide the candidate through the application process, ensure they meet deadlines and prepare all parts of the application.

These could be:

• Track record
• Case for Support
• Letter/statement of support (from Head of School/other)
• there are templates for these but the candidate should work on this and tailor it to their application. They should also include any support that they are getting from the school, e.g. the fact that you are working with them. They should also include the LKAS commitment and how they plan to use the Early Career Development Programme to advance their career, in addition to a more tailored career development plan integrated in to the fellowship application.
• Letters of support from external partners –
• often the applicant will have to draft templates for the partners and indicate the kind of support and the value of that support (£ either cash or in kind) to the partner to help them.
• LKAS application
• Justification of Resources
• UKRI TFS / other funder portal