Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellowship

Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellowship
Name	Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellowship
Awarded by	William Hesketh Lever, Viscount Leverhulme estate
Country	United Kingdom
Established	1925
Sponsor	Leverhulme Trust
Type	Fellowship

Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellowship The Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellowship is a UK-based award that supports established scholars for extended periods of full-time research leave. The fellowship enables academics from Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, UCL and other institutions to pursue major projects in the arts, humanities, social sciences, and sciences without teaching or administrative duties. Recipients have included leading figures associated with British Academy, Royal Society, Wellcome Trust, and international universities such as Harvard University, Yale University, Princeton University, University of Chicago.

Overview

The fellowship offers time and funding for senior scholars from institutions across the United Kingdom, facilitating concentrated research comparable to awards like the Rhodes Scholarship, MacArthur Fellowship, Guggenheim Fellowship, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, and the Fulbright Program. Applicants often come from departments influenced by figures linked with King's College London, Imperial College London, Edinburgh University, University of Manchester, University of Glasgow, University of Leeds, University of Birmingham, University of Bristol, University of Warwick, Durham University, and University of Sheffield. Projects frequently intersect with agendas of museums and libraries including the British Library, Victoria and Albert Museum, Tate Modern, National Archives, and research institutes such as the Institute of Historical Research, School of Advanced Study, Institute of Development Studies, Institute of Cancer Research, and Rothamsted Research.

Eligibility and Criteria

Eligible candidates are established academics holding posts at recognized institutions like Oxford Brookes University, Queen Mary University of London, SOAS, Royal Holloway, Lancaster University, St Andrews, Queen's University Belfast, or equivalent research bodies. Criteria emphasize scholarly distinction comparable with fellows of the Royal Society, members of the British Academy, recipients of awards such as the Turner Prize, Man Booker Prize, Pulitzer Prize, BAFTA, Nobel Prize, Copley Medal, or Wolf Prize. Applicants typically demonstrate publication records with presses and journals linked to Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, Routledge, Springer Nature, Taylor & Francis, Elsevier, Nature, The Lancet, American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, and Modern Language Review.

Application and Selection Process

Applications require detailed proposals, institutional support letters from heads at institutions like Trinity College Dublin, University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, or University of Edinburgh, and referee reports often from peers at Columbia University, Stanford University, MIT, Caltech, University of Toronto, McGill University, ANU, University of Melbourne, Tsinghua University, Peking University, NUS, or Seoul National University. Shortlisting and selection involve panels drawing expertise from organizations including the Arts and Humanities Research Council, Economic and Social Research Council, Medical Research Council, and advisory input from academies like the Royal Academy of Engineering. Final selection mirrors procedures used by bodies such as the European Research Council and the Wellcome Trust peer review processes.

Funding Details and Duration

Fellowships typically cover salary costs for a specified period, mirroring arrangements seen in awards from British Academy and Royal Society schemes, and may include research expenses, travel to repositories like the Bodleian Library, Cambridge University Library, National Railway Museum, or fieldwork in locations such as Jerusalem, Rome, Athens, Istanbul, Cairo, Beijing, New Delhi, Lagos, Cape Town, São Paulo, or Mexico City. Durations commonly range from six months to two years, aligning with sabbatical norms at institutions including University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, Yale University, Columbia University, and NYU. Financial terms are comparable in scope to fellowships from Leverhulme Trust, Gates Cambridge Scholarship, Rhodes Trust, and Clarendon Fund.

Responsibilities and Benefits

Fellows are relieved of teaching and administrative duties at universities such as University of Kent, Goldsmiths, Birkbeck, Royal College of Art, Central Saint Martins, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, or research centers like Max Planck Society, CNRS, Fraunhofer Society, and Scripps Research. Benefits include concentrated time for monographs with publishers like Penguin Random House, Bloomsbury, Faber and Faber, collaborative opportunities with institutions such as Smithsonian Institution, Getty Research Institute, Louvre, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and enhanced eligibility for subsequent grants from European Union research programs, NERC, ESRC, and philanthropic foundations like Wellcome Trust and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Notable Fellows and Impact

Past fellows have included academics whose work intersects with figures and institutions such as Simon Schama, E. P. Thompson, Mary Beard, Stephen Greenblatt, Judith Butler, Noam Chomsky, Hannah Arendt, Isaiah Berlin, Edward Said, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Jürgen Habermas, Amartya Sen, Paul Krugman, Thomas Piketty, Angela Davis, bell hooks, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Martha Nussbaum, John Keane, A. J. P. Taylor, C. S. Lewis, Bertrand Russell, John Maynard Keynes, Karl Popper, Oliver Sacks, Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker, Noël Carroll, Donna Haraway, Bruno Latour, Stuart Hall, Homi K. Bhabha, Edward Z. Said, Leopold von Ranke and others. Their projects have influenced exhibitions at Tate Britain, conservation at Natural History Museum, policy discussions in Westminster Hall, debates at Chatham House, and scholarly discourse published by Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press.

History and Development

Founded in the 1920s under the patronage of the Leverhulme estate linked to industrialist William Lever, the Trust developed alongside philanthropic initiatives such as those by Carnegie Corporation, Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation, and Nuffield Foundation. Over decades the fellowship evolved through reforms parallel to higher education changes at University Grants Committee, the establishment of funding councils like the Higher Education Funding Council for England, the creation of research councils including Science and Technology Facilities Council, and the growth of international exchange with programs like Erasmus Programme and collaborations with institutions such as International Council for Science and UNESCO.

Category:Fellowships