Fellowship opportunities

The Future Leaders Fellowships programme is run by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and aims to grow the supply of talented individuals needed to ensure a vibrant environment for research and innovation in the UK. The scheme is open to researchers and innovators from across business, universities, and other organisations. The scheme welcomes applicants from around the world and seeks to attract and retain research and innovation talent in the UK.

Each fellowship will provide funding up to £1.2 million over four years, with the ability to extend to up to seven years, to enable the next generation to benefit from outstanding support to develop their careers, and to work on difficult and novel challenges. Fellowships can be held full time or part time. The Future Leaders Fellowships scheme has been developed with unprecedented levels of flexibility to support applicants from a wide range of experiences, disciplines and sectors.

To find out more about the competition please visit the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships web page or attend our information event on Tuesday 15 September 2020 at 2pm – please register to receive details.  

There will be six rounds of the competition between 2018-19 and 2020-21. Round Six of the competition is taking place during Autumn/Winter 2020/21 and the deadlines are as follows:

• Deadline for Expressions of Interest to apply for a UKRI FLF hosted by the University of Surrey: 23 October 2020 at 4pm
  • Applicants will need to submit a one page vision for their Fellowship, two page CV, and one page publication list. Please contact Claire Edwards (claire.edwards@surrey.ac.uk) to discuss a potential application
• Deadline for Outline Applications to be submitted to UKRI: 10 December 2020 at 4pm
• Deadline for Full Proposals to be submitted to UKRI: 19 January 2021 at 4pm.

The University is keen to encourage high-calibre researchers to contact their anticipated host department to discuss the opportunity. For more information about the internal selection process or to express your interest in applying please contact Claire Edwards (claire.edwards@surrey.ac.uk).

As part of a major investment in artificial intelligence (AI) talent and skills, UKRI have recently launched two fellowship schemes which aim to attract the best and brightest talent in AI to the UK as well as retaining and developing leading expertise in AI within the UK:

• Turing AI Acceleration Fellowship
• Turing AI World Leading Researcher Fellowships

Fellows will tackle the fundamental methodological and theoretical challenges in AI as well as developing new models of collaboration with industry, government, and the third sector.

Turing AI Acceleration Fellowship

• Funding of £18m is available to fund 10 to 15 fellowships for five years, starting by 1 January 2021.  
• The University of Surrey can only submit a maximum of four applicants to this call and therefore an internal selection process is in place with a deadline of the 8 January 2020.

Turing AI World Leading Researcher Fellowships

• Funding of £18m is available to fund approximately three to five fellows for up to five years, starting by 1 April 2021.
• The University of Surrey can only submit a maximum of two applicants to this call and therefore an internal selection process will be in place.

Applying

If you are interested in applying for a UKRI Turing AI Fellowship hosted by the University of Surrey, please contact Claire Edwards (claire.edwards@surrey.ac.uk) for details of the University application process.