Independent postdoctoral fellowship opportunities

The School of History offers a supportive and collaborative environment for early career scholars to develop their research careers. A prestigious independent fellowship offers scholars the chance to develop their research profile and become a research leader. The School is keen to support fellowship applications from outstanding individuals for independent fellowships.

If you are interested in any of these schemes, the first step is to contact a potential mentor at St Andrews (see our staff list), and seek their support of your application. Your mentor will then be able to guide you through the process of securing the necessary ‘letter of support’ or ‘invitation letter’ from the School in conjunction with the Director of Research.

Queries and applications can be directed to the Director of Research by emailing histdor@st-andrews.ac.uk

For certain schemes, there is an internal selection process either within the School of History, or within the School and the University. Information about deadlines for those schemes is below.

When assessing your expression of interest for support, the School considers:

your track record
the research that you propose to carry out and where that fits within the School strategy
your career stage, experience and why you would benefit from this fellowship at this stage in your career.

As part of its policy, the School actively promotes the fair treatment of all staff and students irrespective of sex, sexual orientation, age, race, belief, disability, pregnancy and maternity or relationship status. The School of History holds an Athena Swan Bronze Award and encourages expressions of interest from highly motivated candidates of any self-identifying group.

Fellowship schemes

British Academy postdoctoral fellowships: our internal deadline for preliminary applications is 5pm on 1 September 2025. For application details see below. Applicants should submit the document to histdor@st-andrews.ac.uk. The deadline for institutional approval is 5pm on 1 October 2025.

Leverhulme Trust early career fellowships: our internal deadline for preliminary applications is 5pm on 3 November 2025. For application details see below. Applicants should submit the document to histdor@st-andrews.ac.uk. Please note that the school can usually only put forward one application for central university approval so there will be a competitive internal review. Please also note that school support does not always mean central university approval will be granted. If your application is selected, the final Leverhulme deadline will be in February 2026.

For all other schemes (Wellcome, Marie Curie etc) contact your proposed mentor for advice in the first instance.

Preliminary applications should be sent as a single document (.doc or .pdf) with the following sections:

Title of research proposal: No more than 80 characters including spaces.
Fields of study: Select the fields of study which most closely reflect the area of research of the current application.
Abstract: This account should be given in non-technical terms so as to be easily comprehensible to a non-expert (maximum 100 words).
Short CV (no more than 2 pages) making clear your actual PhD Award Date
Details of current and past research: Give details of your current and past research experience (maximum 250 words). If this is too extensive to be summarised in 250 words focus on the research most relevant to the current application.
Detailed statement of proposed research: This should include aims, objectives, methodology and outcome (e.g. publication plans). This statement and the bibliographic references may not exceed two sides of A4. We recommend that you use Arial font size 11
Major publications: Please list your publications (maximum one side of A4) under three main headings; ‘In preparation’, ‘Submitted’ and ‘Published’, as appropriate. We recommend that you use Arial font size 11. If a full list of your publications exceeds one page, then include only the publications most relevant to the current application.
Name of mentor and statement of institutional fit: This should state who your proposed mentor at St Andrews would be and why they are the right person for your project. Also explain how your project will fit within the wider research environment (other staff interests, institutes and their activities, specific research collections etc). Max. 200 words.
Names of 3 Referees: Name and current institution. No more than one referee should be from the proposed host institution. The head of department from your proposed host institution may not act as a referee. No actual letters of support are needed at this initial stage.