The University has a fund which provides support for large bids. You can find further information on the Large Bid Fund and guidance how to apply here:
https://www.research-strategy.admin.cam.ac.uk/research-funding/support-large-bid-preparation
The team in the Research Strategy Ofiice can assist you, as we are aware the application process can be time consuming. The RSO can offer support with facilitation, coordination and input into large complex bids, particularly to promote cross-disciplinary grant applications.
Please get in touch if you are interested and we can help.
Restricted Call: NIHR Research Professorships and Global Health Research Professorships (internal deadline: 22nd September 2025)
It is expected that NIHR will issue a call for the Research Professorships, Round 16 (RP) and Global Health Research Professorships, Round 9 (GHRP) in September. Both schemes are aimed at health, public health and adult social care researchers, and methodologists with an outstanding research record of clinical and applied health, and/or care research and its effective translation for improved health and care. For both schemes, the priority is on promoting effective translation of research into practice. For the Global Health Research Professorships, the focus is on translation in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Each award will consist of a five-year package of maximum £2M (on average between £1.7 and 1.8M) to support a professorship, including support posts, research running costs, a travel fund and a leadership and development programme which includes access to the NIHR Leadership Programme.
Candidate and research eligibility:
For both schemes: Candidates will need to demonstrate a steep career trajectory over the last 5-10 years and will have spent no more than five years at their current level of seniority at the time of application. Candidates should not already be established leaders in their field but be on an upward trajectory to become leaders after the period of award. Nominees should be working in the fields of experimental medicine, public health, health services research, social care research or methodological research. They should have a demonstrable record in effective translation of research into improved health, public health or adult social care. Applications involving basic research or work involving animals or their tissue will be deemed ineligible.
For RP only: Nominations are only eligible where the Higher Education Institution (HEI) is working in partnership with NHS (or vice versa), or organisations/commissioners/providers of public health and/or care services, based in England.
For GHRP only: UK-based nominees must have partner organisation(s) in LMIC(s) on the OECD DAC list of Official Development Assistance (ODA) countries. Research should be ODA-compliant, and the proposal should plan to strengthen these collaborations and support training and capacity development.
For more information about the scheme, including detailed requirements and eligibility, please see the general call pages and the previous round’s guidance pages Round 15 Guidance for the Research Professorships and Round 8 Guidance for the Global Health Research Professorships.
Key expectations:
For both schemes:
Salary recycling:
The basic salary of the Research Professor is funded by NIHR. Host institutions are required to recycle the salary costs released from the Professor’s previous role. This means the institution must reinvest those funds to build research capacity—such as hiring new academic or research staff, supporting early career researchers, or enhancing research infrastructure. This plan must be clearly documented and is assessed as part of the application.
Institutional support and future employment:
Institutions must demonstrate a strong and sustained commitment to the nominee. This includes ensuring that the individual has access to appropriate administrative and research support and guaranteeing the availability of necessary infrastructure and facilities. In addition, institutions are expected to support the nominee’s leadership development, including their participation in the NIHR Leadership Programme.
For RP only:
Institutions must commit to supporting the individual beyond the lifetime of the award. This includes a long-term employment plan and sustaining the individual’s role and research leadership after the NIHR funding ends. The award is intended to strengthen institutional research leadership capacity, so there should be a clear plan for the nominee’s long-term integration into the institution’s strategic research direction
University Internal selection for both calls:
NIHR restricts the number of nominations Higher Education Institutions (HEI) can put forward to these funding calls. The limit of the number of applications per HEI in each round applies regardless of whether the HEI will be the lead employing organisation or the partner organisation:
- For the Research Professorship, NIHR allow a maximum of 3 nominations provided that at least one applicant is from an ethnic minority group. This is in addition to the requirement that at least 1 applicant is female if more than 1 nomination is made. If the University puts forward 2 nominees, at least one applicant must be female.
- For the Global Health Research Professorship, NIHR allow a maximum of 2 nominations. If the University puts forward 2 nominees, at least one applicant must be female.
Therefore, this call will be managed according to the University’s restricted calls procedure.
Schools have been asked to each provide a ranked lists of individuals they recommend are supported to apply to this round of funding. Departments should therefore await communication from their School office to understand the selection/ranking process and timetable. Please note that applicants that haven’t been through the School ranking stage of the internal selection process will not be accepted or included in the University of Cambridge submission for this funding call.
Internal deadline for Schools to submit ranked candidates: 22nd September 2025
Anticipated funder deadline: 10th December 2025
If you have any queries, please don’t hesitate to contact us at researchstrategy@admin.cam.ac.uk.
The British Academy (BA) have now announced their popular Postdoctoral Fellowships scheme, with a deadline for submissions of 1st October 2025. This communication is to provide departments with an overview of the University’s processes for this round of the scheme.
Scheme Overview
The British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship is a three-year fellowship for outstanding early career researchers in the humanities and social sciences. The scheme aims to help develop the award holder’s curriculum vitae and boost their prospects of obtaining a permanent university post. The primary emphasis is on the completion of a significant piece of publishable research, and the integration of the award holder into the community of established scholars within their field. Fellowships are tenable in all fields within the humanities and social sciences. This is a highly competitive scheme and success rates are typically no more than 10%.
University procedures in 2025
Previously, up to 2022, the University had been conducting an internal selection process to meet the BA’s recommendations for demand management and to ensure that only high-quality proposals are put forward to the funder. In order to increase our success rates, a new approach has been taken and will be continued this year.
As with previous years, the University will not be conducting an internal central selection process, Departments are requested to identify and prioritise the strongest applications to ensure only high-quality proposals are put forward to the funder. Supporting applicants whose projects or track record are not sufficiently strong will prevent them from being able to reapply.
The School Research Facilitators will run an online information session for applicants on 16th July at 1pm. Please encourage potential applicants to register via this link.
The outline stage for this scheme is exempt from the usual Research Operations Office (ROO) deadlines because the funder does not request financial information at the this initial stage. Departments are asked to follow Small Applications Processes for this scheme, regardless the value of the proposal (NB: this still includes submitting an ‘outline X5 costing’). Please note that departments are expected to notify ROO of an intention to submit any grant applications with a minimum of four weeks’ notice – ROO colleagues will find this early notification incredibly helpful for this scheme.
Funder deadline: 01st October 2025
If you have any questions, please contact us at researchstrategy@admin.cam.ac.uk.
EPSRC has announced the Turing AI Pioneer Interdisciplinary Fellowships: outline applications
The newly established fellowships are aimed at established researchers from across UKRI remit who are looking to build skills and capability in Artificial Intelligence (AI) relevant to their domain with a view to addressing a defined research challenge in their field. As such, applicants with a background in core AI research are not eligible to apply. Broadly, fellows are expected to (a) upskill themselves and their teams in AI methodologies and (b) collaborate with (non-)academic partners to deliver wider societal and economic impact. In particular, the funder encourages collaboration with an established AI specialist/researcher to capitalize on the career development and AI focus of the project: please refer to the “Collaboration with an AI expert” section of the call page.
While the funder indicates proposals from all councils’ remits are welcome, they note that the proposals in the following domains supporting government missions/challenges are particularly welcome: engineering biology; frontier physics; materials science; medical research; quantum technology.
The fEC value of the projects can be up to £2,187,500, and EPSRC will fund 80% of the fEC. Project duration can be up to three years, with a fixed start date of 1 October 2026. While the funder states that researchers should be established, they also note that there are no standardised eligibility criteria for this fellowship due to the diversity of career paths in AI. With regards to the eligibility, please refer to the EPSRC Eligibility page, and the “Scope” section of the call page.
University Internal selection:
Institutions can only submit / lead on four outline applications. Therefore, this call will be managed according to the University’s restricted calls procedure. Your Department’s Research Grants Team and/or Departmental Administrator (or equivalent) must be made aware of your internal application.
To take part in the internal selection, please complete our online form
(NB: if asked to log-in, please use your crsID/Raven details; note that a Form cannot be saved and returned to) by Wednesday 20 August 2025.
You will need the following documents and information to complete the Form:
• Project Summary that addresses the assessment criteria below (max. 600 words)
• Head of Department Letter confirming that the Department is happy to host the fellowship
• Applicant Narrative CV (max. 4 pages for four modules following the funder's format)
Internal Assessment Criteria:
Please note that the assessment of internal applications will focus on the following core funder criteria (see the "Application Questions" section for more details on each criterion):
• Quality and capability to deliver: research excellence including the ambition, novelty, and timeliness of the proposed programme; the proposed team have the right mix of expertise
• AI Integration and training: how AI will be integrated in the applicant’s research programme not only during but also beyond the fellowship, including with aid of a career development/training plan; how the AI methodology will enrich and transform the applicant’s research domain, and lead to a step-change in addressing the chosen research challenge
• Collaborations for impact and delivery: How the applicant will build and sustain collaborations with (non-)academic partners and the chosen AI specialist to co-create the project
Funder deadline for the outline applications: Tuesday 14 October 2025, 4:00pm BST.
Coordinated call: RS Faraday Discovery Fellowships AIR (internal deadline: 20th October 2025)
The Royal Society has announced the second round of the Accelerated International Route Faraday Discovery Fellowships. It aims to provide a fast-track option for attracting mid-career researchers looking to relocate to the UK from overseas. It is intended for outstanding international researchers nominated by their UK host organisation and will run for two years. The fast-track programme will provide grants of up to £4m over a five-year period to support the development of world-leading research groups in the UK. It is expected that institutions will use these awards to make strategically important appointments, attracting leading researchers from overseas. Please note that concurrent applications cannot be made to the Faraday Discovery Fellowship standard route and accelerated international route.
The first stage of the application process requires a nomination by the Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research. To nominate a candidate, you will need to complete our online form which compiles all the information and documents needed to be submitted with the nomination to the Royal Society (if asked to log-in, please use your crsid/Raven details) by 20th October 2025. Please find attached a document which details the information and uploads you will need, along with a template for the nomination.
Internal deadline: 20th October 2025
Nomination deadline: 25th November 2025
Full stage application deadline: 20th January 2026
If you have any queries, please don’t hesitate to contact us at researchstrategy@admin.cam.ac.uk.
Documents
Restricted Call: Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarships (internal deadline: 23rd October 2025)
The Leverhulme Trust has pre-announced the Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarships call, due to open on 3rd November 2025. Ten awards of up to £5 million will be made to UK universities in this round, with each award to fund up to 30 Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarships in a priority research area for that institution.
The Trust and the scheme have a focus on funding interdisciplinary research, and it is therefore expected that topics will involve more than one discipline.
For further information about the call, see the funder’s guidance and the attached bid guidance document from the Postgraduate Research Office.
University Internal selection process
A university may submit only one application as lead but may partner in multiple applications, provided they are in different disciplinary areas. Therefore, this call will be managed according to the University’s restricted calls policy for both Cambridge-led applications and those where Cambridge would be the non-lead partner.
To take part in the internal selection, please complete our online form by 23rd October 2025 (if asked to log-in, please use your University SSO details). You will need the following information and documents to complete the form:
- Name(s) and affiliation(s) of principal applicant and co-applicant(s) at the University Cambridge and any partner institution, plus brief biographical details about the principal applicant (max 200 words)
- The title and disciplinary area of the proposal
- If the proposal is collaborative with another institution, whether the University of Cambridge would be the lead or non-lead partner
- A programme synopsis covering the following (max 1200 words):
- An outline of the topic and fields of study, and alignment with strategic priorities of the University/Schools/Departments. For collaborative applications, please also outline the basis and history of the partnership and how the programme will be managed.
- An overview of plans for the supervision of doctoral scholars, including the arrangements for selecting supervisors and monitoring student progress.
- A brief overview of the proposed training and cohort-building activities.
- An outline of how the proposed programme would utilise and administer the post-doctoral support element.
- A brief summary of the relationship between the proposed Doctoral Scholarship programme and any current doctoral training awards in this area, if applicable.
- How the Leverhulme Scholarships would provide added value in the chosen research subject area and to the university/universities and how the University might sustain a legacy of the Scholarships in the chosen area.
- A letter of support from the principal applicant’s Head of Department, countersigned by the relevant Head of School.
Applications will be assessed against the following subset of the funder’s general criteria and specific criteria for this call:
- The originality, importance and significance of the programme.
- The strength of the case for the choice of subject area identified as a priority for doctoral training.
- The quality of the proposed plans for the supervision of doctoral scholars, and the training and cohort-building activities.
- How well the proposed scholarships fits within the current institutional provision for doctoral training (at both universities, where applicable) and the extent to which the award would add value and deliver a legacy for the research in the chosen area
The outcome of the internal selection will be announced in November 2025 and support will be available to the selected application(s) to develop the proposed programme.
Funding call information session (online)
To support prospective applicants and Departmental colleagues in understanding this call and applying to the internal selection, we plan to hold an information session together with colleagues from the Postgraduate Research Office via MS Teams on Friday 26 September at 11:00-12:00. Please register to attend the session and you will then receive the joining link.
Funder’s timeline
- Scheme Opens: 03 November
- Funder deadline: 06 March 2026
- Decision: July 2026
If you have any queries, please don’t hesitate to contact us at researchstrategy@admin.cam.ac.uk
