Leverhulme Trust: Research Leadership Awards 2025 – Internal Selection Process 

In January 2025, Leverhulme Trust will open the call to the Research Leadership Awards for submission of applications by May 2025 (date to be confirmed).

The aim of this award is to support talented scholars who have successfully launched a university career but who need to build a research team of sufficient scale to tackle a distinctive research problem.  This creates an opportunity for the development and demonstration of research leadership; that is, for the direction of a modest team or group, whose research may significantly change the established landscape in a particular field of inquiry.  Awards will be up to the value of £1 million, for staff and associated costs over a period of 4 to 5 years.

Eligible candidates must at the time of the Leverhulme application:

• Have had at least two years full time or equivalent experience in a research and/or teaching post in a university after the date of their PhD award;
• Be at an early stage of their academic career such that the trajectory of their research contribution has not become firmly established;
• Have a contract with a university in the UK that extends beyond the end of the grant award.

Projects may be in any research area, with the exception of research informing clinical practice or applications, studies of disease in animals or humans, policy-driven research, research for immediate commercial application, or research areas currently identified as a priority by major public funders (for a full list of exceptions see Research Leadership Awards).

Internal Selection Process

Each UK institution is permitted to submit one application into this call. Therefore, we are inviting Expressions of Interest (EoI) to allow the University to determine which full application should be developed for submission to the Leverhulme Trust.

Candidates are asked to submit EoI’s by Tuesday 28 January 2025, 5pm.  These will then be reviewed at a panel being held on 10 February 2025, by the PVC for Research and Innovation and the Faculty Deans of Research and Innovation.

Expressions of Interest should contain the following information:

• Summary of the proposed research, details of the main aims and the proposed methodology, extent to which the proposed work can be seen to reshape the disciplinary landscape the structure and activities of the research team, and how this award will enable the candidate to develop as a research leader (no more than 2 pages
•  CV of the candidate (no more than 2 pages)
•  Support of the candidate’s Head of School (no more than half a page)

All documentation should be submitted to Lorraine Vincent, Senior Research Funding Development Manager, (Lorraine.vincent@ncl.ac.uk) by 5pm on Tuesday 28 January 2025.

Any queries should be directed to your relevant Faculty Research Funding Development Manager in the first instance.