St John’s College Research Fellowships competition 2025 opens for early career academics
‘Rising stars’ invited to apply for prestigious research posts before 19 September 2024
Our Research Fellowships open doors for rising stars – Nobel Prize-winners have begun their academic careers at St John’s, one Research Fellow coined the phrase ‘Big Bang’, and another was a Bletchley Park code-breaker.
The research interests of St John’s Fellows remain as extensive as ever – they are working at the forefront of everything from artificial intelligence, and evolutionary biology, to the psychology of social media.
We are now inviting applications for the 2025 Research Fellowship awards, with a starting date of 1 October 2025. These prestigious awards offer a rare opportunity for you to devote yourself to independent research in a stimulating and supportive academic environment, for up to four years.
We place great importance on the intellectual contribution our Research Fellows make to St John’s, and on creating the conditions to accelerate your progress towards an outstanding academic career.
The College is offering up to four Research Fellowship awards in the 2025 competition.
“Research Fellows are able to devote their time to research, and the level of engagement they are able to have with important questions within their field is particularly high”
Eligibility
We accept applications from a graduate of any university within or outside the United Kingdom, and welcome applications from all academic disciplines, to sustain a diverse community of award-holders.
Our Research Fellowship awards are for early-career academics. Successful candidates will normally either be postdoctoral researchers who have been awarded their PhD within the last two years or graduate students in the latter stages of research leading to a PhD.
Candidates holding a fellowship or other postdoctoral stipend (for example, awarded by a research council or other similar body) may apply, noting that any stipend or other funding received will be deducted from the Research Fellowship award.
Holders of a Fellowship at a Cambridge college may not apply. Candidates who accept a Fellowship from another Cambridge college will be deemed to have withdrawn from St John’s College’s Research Fellowship competition.
We typically receive between 600 and 800 eligible applications for Research Fellowship awards. Information about our current Research Fellows can be found in our Research Fellows’ Directory.
“We are invited, with immense warmth, to participate in every aspect of College life and I have had some of the most exciting discussions and exchanges with colleagues both within and beyond my field at St John’s”
Terms of the award and accompanying Fellowship
The award offers a research stipend of £31,396 to £33,966 per annum for up to four years, and award-holders are elected to a Research Fellowship for this period. Award-holders are permitted to receive additional pay for up to six hours' College or University teaching a week.
Research Fellows benefit from up to £10,000 in additional grants over their four-year tenure. These grants support the costs of academic materials, travel expenses, computer equipment, books and, where appropriate, the expense of extended periods of research outside Cambridge. Additionally, during their four-year tenure, we offer up to £5,700 towards the costs of organising a conference or workshop in St John’s.
Research Fellows can choose to live in College in single residential accommodation, with charges applying for services and supplies. Research Fellows who live outside College, including those who live with their partner/family, are eligible for a housing allowance worth up to £34,800 over their four-year tenure. This allowance is paid monthly and is capped at 50% of rent paid. Research Fellows living outside St John’s will have an office in College. Fellowships are held on condition of residence within the University of Cambridge, ie within 20 miles of the centre of Cambridge.
Research Fellows are also entitled to take one meal each day in College, at College expense.
Subject to circumstances, we will consider:
- a deferral for up to one year before the Research Fellowship award and associated Fellowship commences;
- periods of working away from Cambridge for the purposes of research for up to one year;
- a period undertaking a remunerated academic position that contributes to professional development (for example, a temporary teaching position) of up to one year, during which the award-holder will forgo the College stipend.
“The very generous housing allowance and food provision make this Research Fellowship appealing to those who really have to consider the financial viability of continuing research”
About our College and our Research Fellows
For more than 500 years, St John’s has flourished as an independent and self-determining academic community. We approach our mission to advance education, learning and research with an unwavering commitment to academic freedom, excellence, and integrity.
We are committed to sustaining and enhancing the College’s global renown for scholarship across a wide range of disciplines, and we are regarded as a beacon of academic excellence.
St John’s is a friendly, warm, and welcoming place. The College is held in deep affection by its members, who include around 155 Fellows, 550 undergraduate and 300+ postgraduate students, some 13,000 alumni worldwide, and 250 staff. Our community is a tolerant, inclusive, caring and respectful meritocracy, with genuine joie de vivre. We cherish the diversity of experience, culture, and perspective in members of the College, and the way this enriches our learning and our lives. We seek to balance how we fulfil our purposes today with our stewardship responsibilities for future generations in the College, and for the wellbeing of our planet.
Our Research Fellows play an important role in the Fellowship and the College, and we place great importance in helping them to establish strong foundations for an outstanding academic career. This includes providing a mentor to support their research progress and an invaluable annual touchpoint with the expert academics on our Research Committee.
Once elected, our Research Fellows have full voting rights, and their voices make a valued contribution to the governance of the College.
Our main objective is to ensure Research Fellows are devoted to research in order to accelerate their scholarly progress but we also create opportunities to gain experience in strategic and business matters, which can be further differentiators when it comes to future steps on the career ladder.
“The level of intellectual, social and practical support feels profoundly special, and makes this experience feel like so much more than simply a job”
Our Research Fellows organise lecture series, connect with alumni and students, help to foster an active social life, are integral to sport, music and other cultural activities, and sit on appointment panels. Some present students for degrees and are elected to serve as Trustees of the College.
The 2018 cohort include Dr Vincent Fortuin, an engineer who was selected for The Branco Weiss Fellowship, a prestigious programme for outstanding postdoctoral researchers hosted by ETH Zurich.
Evolutionary biologist Dr Joana Meier became a Research Fellow in 2018 and since 2022 has been Royal Society University Research Fellow and Group Leader at the Tree of Life Programme of the Wellcome Sanger Institute.
Dr Morgan Ng, who is a historian of Renaissance Architecture and Visual Culture, joined Yale University in 2021 after his Research Fellowship.
Researching the relationship between two Bronze Age writing systems, classicist Dr Ester Salgarella made enormous steps towards the deciphering of the Linear A Minoan script, with her findings described as ‘an extraordinary piece of detective work’.
Dr Giuliana Fusco was awarded the Raymond Andrew Prize for her PhD thesis while a postgraduate at St John’s, and as a Research Fellow she was lead author of a study that made a vital step towards understanding the origins of Parkinson’s Disease.
“Research Fellows inject an academic excitement into the environment, introducing new scholars, new areas of study, and new Fellows to get to know”
How to apply
Your application must be submitted online by 2pm BST on 19 September 2024. Referees will have until 2pm BST on 24 September to complete your references.
You can submit an application before getting all three references, but your application will be considered incomplete if the references are not added by the reference deadline. It is your responsibility to ensure referees submit their references in time.
The application site will open during the week commencing 29 July 2024. Awards will be made in January 2025.
No interviews are held. Rigorous assessment of submitted written work, previous research achievements and research intentions are of primary importance.
St John’s College policies are fully inclusive, regardless of age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, gender identity or reassignment, or relationship status.
Please note the College is unable to advise or assist individual candidates on any matters concerning eligibility or the content of their applications. You can find a guidance document for filling out your application below.
Support
For technical enquiries or difficulties accessing the application site, email Research Fellowship competition or call +44 1223 338 609.
Published 30/7/2024