Restricted Call: Leverhulme Trust Research Leadership Award (internal deadline: 12 March, 2025)

The Leverhulme Trust have announced their Research Leadership Awards. These awards are designed for scholars who have successfully launched a university career and who need to build a research team of sufficient scale to tackle a distinctive research problem. The scheme aims to create an opportunity for the development and demonstration of research leadership through the direction of a modest team or group, whose research may significantly change the established landscape in a particular field of inquiry. Leverhulme offers up to £1,000,000 for projects lasting 4-5 years. The funder expects that host departments provide a commitment to an open-ended independent research/innovation position for the applicant by the end of the award, in line with organisational employment policies and practices, including an open and fair recruitment process. Please see the topics section of the funder’s guidance for the list of exceptions to the topics that Leverhulme fund. The funder aims to make up to ten awards this round.

Eligibility

Please read the eligibility rules carefully. At the time of application, applicants must:

Have had at least two years full-time or equivalent experience in a research or teaching post in a university after the date of their PhD award
Already hold a permanent academic appointment at a UK university at lecturer level or equivalent, or be nominated for the award by a UK university that undertakes to offer a contract for the duration of the award, with the expectation that a permanent role would be offered by the end of the award. Applicants must already have the right to work in the UK and be resident in the UK during the tenure of the award.
Be at an early stage of your academic career such that the trajectory of your research contribution has yet to become firmly established. This means that you must not:
- Have held an equivalent award or fellowship that provided funds to establish an independent research group
- Have held project grant funding in excess of £100k in a single award (personal funding that exceeds this amount is allowable if the award had no provision for managing staff; see Leverhulme guidance for fuller details and exceptions)
- Have led a team of research staff, or managed PDRA staff (NB: this criterion is new for the 2025 competition).

Applicants at Senior Lecturer, Reader/Associate Professor or Professor level or equivalent are therefore not eligible to apply. However, if you hold such a post and meet the criteria above, please address this in your eligibility statement of up to 300 words (see below). Please contact us at researchstrategy@admin.cam.ac.uk if you have any queries about eligibility.

Further information about the scheme can be found on the scheme page, the Guidance for Applicants, Application Help Notes and Frequently Asked Questions. For the list of previous awards, see here.

University Internal selection:

Institutions can only submit 1 application. Therefore, this call will be managed according to the University’s restricted calls procedure.

To take part in the internal selection, please complete our online form by 12 March, 2025 (NB: if asked to log-in, please use your CRSID/Raven details; note that a Form cannot be saved and returned to).

You will need the following documents and information to complete the Form:

CV (max 2 pages). Applicants should consider DORA principles when presenting research outputs.
Project summary (max 800 words). Please address the following:
- main aims of the research and the proposed methodology
- the extent to which the proposed work can be seen to bring about a fruitful reshaping of the disciplinary landscape
- the fit of the proposed research within the institution
- the record and promise of the group leader
- the structure and activities of the research team
a support letter from the Head of Department hosting the grant confirming their support. The letter should also address the financial commitment of the award. The department should provide a commitment to an open-ended independent research/innovation position for the applicant by the end of the award, in line with organisational employment policies and practices. It is a condition from the funder that the host department has identified and secured the source of the funding for an applicant by the funder’s closing date (30 May, 2025) and that this is specifically allocated to the individual concerned. The funding contributed by the host university must be drawn from generally available funds and cannot be associated with any other grants received by the university.
a draft eligibility statement of up to 300 words: please explain, in up to 300 words, why you are eligible to apply to this scheme as an early career scholar. Please confirm your current role, previous grant/fellowship funding and whether you have managed research staff, including postdoctoral research assistants.

Internal Assessment Criteria:

Please note that the assessment of internal applications will focus on the following core funder criteria:

Originality – the research achieves more than the incremental development of a single discipline
Importance – the work will enable further research or enquiry
Significance – the proposed research has relevance outside a single field, and is able to excite those working in other disciplines
Merit – the quality of the research design and methodology, and the suitability of the researchers and institution for the realisation of the proposed research objectives

Pro-Vice Chancellor of Research Support Letter

The successful applicant from the internal selection will require a support letter from the Pro-Vice Chancellor of Research. This process will be run after the internal selection round is completed.

Funder deadline: 30 May, 2025

If you have any queries, please don’t hesitate to contact us at researchstrategy@admin.cam.ac.uk.

Posted on 12/02/2025