British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowships

The British Academy opens its call for applications in July with a deadline in early October. This would be for Fellowships to start at the beginning of the following academic year.

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 their successful viva examination – though exemption may be granted for reasons occurring after the date of the viva voce examination such as: maternity leave, illness, family commitments etc. Please note that unsuccessful applicants are not permitted to re-apply unless invited by the BA to do so.

The eligibility rules for the scheme are complex and you should read the criteria at the webpage above carefully before submitting an expression of interest. Note in particular that applicants must apply within three years from the date of their successful viva voce examination (unless there are extenuating circumstances). For the 2025-26 round, it is likely that applicants will be normally expected to have completed their viva voce between 1 April 2023 and 1 April 2026.

Procedure for applicants applying through Oxford

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 (see below).

Please note: Mentors are not expected to make any input into expressions of interest at the Faculty selection stage.

Once you have the agreed support of an Oxford Faculty member, the next step is to submit an expression of interest to the relevant Faculty. The deadlines and requirements for each of the Faculties in the Humanities will be listed here in the summer.

(For Social Sciences, please contact the relevant departmental administrator: https://socsci.web.ox.ac.uk/research-support-in-departments).

Faculty Procedures for 2025-26 Competition Round will appear here shortly.

For any queries, please contact BApostdoc@humanities.ox.ac.uk

Divisional support and administration

The Faculty where you wish to hold the Fellowship will review your expression of interest. If they are supportive of you making an application to the scheme, a Research Facilitator will work with you on your application.

We will run a workshop in September 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.