British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowships

This scheme is designed to enable outstanding early career scholars to obtain experience of research and teaching in the university environment, which will strengthen their curriculum vitae and improve their prospects of obtaining permanent posts by the end of the fellowship.  Awards are for three years and applicants must be within three years of the award of a doctorate.  Please note that unsuccessful applicants are not permitted to re-apply unless invited by the BA to do so.

Oxford Humanities currently hosts over 20 BA Postdoctoral Fellows. Abstracts of current and former Fellows' projects can be found on the British Academy website: https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/postdoctoral-fellowships/past-awards/

The next application round for fellowships will open in mid-August 2020, with a deadline in early October (dates still to be announced by British Academy).

Eligibility: Applicants must have obtained their doctorate recently (for the October 2019 deadline, the viva must have been passed after 1 April 2017 and no later than 1 April 2020), and must not have held an established teaching post in an institution of higher education. If you have previously applied to the scheme, you can only re-apply if you have been invited by the BA to do so.

Salary: BA Postdoctoral Fellows receive a salary equivalent to a junior lecturer (the first point on the scale currently has a salary of £32,236; salary scales are available via the University's Personnel Division).

Period of award: For successful applicants to the outline and main stage in Autumn 2019 and early 2020, Fellowships would commence between 1 September 2020 and 1 January 2021, and would be tenable for three years (not renewable).

Please also see the BA guidelines: https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/postdoctoral-fellowships/

We are keen to encourage prospective Postdoctoral Fellows from outside Oxford to explore the possibility of applying through the Humanities Division, as well as those currently based here. Initially, you should make contact with the person at Oxford who you would like to be your mentor and ask if they would be prepared to undertake this role. Once they have agreed, follow the steps to obtain approval from the relevant Faculty to make the application (section 1 below).

The British Academy runs a two stage application process each year, with the deadline for outline applications falling in late September/early October and for the second stage in February or early March the following year, for Fellowships to be taken up at the beginning of the following academic year.

Should you be interested in applying through Oxford for a BA PDF, please note that your expression of interest application will be assessed by the relevant Faculty in the first instance. The relevant internal deadlines and requirements for each of the Faculties in the Humanities will be listed here in summer 2020.

(For Social Sciences, please contact the relevant departmental administrator: http://www.socsci.ox.ac.uk/departments3). 

For any queries please contact BApostdocs@humanities.ox.ac.uk

 

Philosophy (deadline 14 August): https://www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/british-academy 

Classics (deadline 8 July): https://www.classics.ox.ac.uk/job-opportunities 

Theology & Religion (deadline 15 July): https://www.theology.ox.ac.uk/article/applications-research-fellowships-2020-ba
History (deadline 7 August): https://www.history.ox.ac.uk/article/british-academy-postdoctoral-fellowships-applications-open

 

Other faculties' dates TBC.

 

Once your application has been approved, the research facilitator responsible will work with you on your application.

We will run a one-day workshop in September (Humanities Division, 3rd floor seminar room) where we will work through the different parts of the application, and also discuss aspects such objective setting, writing a methodology, workplan and outputs in detail. Once approved by your faculty you will receive an invite to register for this.

The internal deadline for submitting applications via the BA’s Flexi-Grant system will be 5 working days before the external BA deadline – this is to allow time for institutional approval of your application, a requirement by the British Academy.

The application form for the outline stage will be available on Flexi-Grant from the end of August.

Please note: If you expect to be based in the History Faculty, please see the History faculty website, Home | Faculty of History, and if you have any queries please contact Hollie Press on rdo@history.ox.ac.uk. Applicants to Departments outside the Humanities Division should contact the Administrator of the relevant Department for advice on how to proceed.

 
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