Frequently Asked Questions: Mid-Career Fellowship

I am a mid-career scholar but notice that applicants should ‘normally be within no more than 15 years from the award of their doctorate’. I received my doctorate more than 15 years ago, would I still be eligible for consideration?

You are not directly eligible within the terms we have set, but a case would certainly be considered by the assessors. We do not go into purely arithmetical calculations. If your doctorate was awarded more than 15 years ago and your career has been interrupted, for example for illness or maternity leave, we will consider your case sympathetically. If you want to go ahead and apply, please do so, but in the personal statement you would need to set out the case for exemption to be given, referring, for example, not only to the periods of interruption, such as for maternity leave, but to the subsequent impact of having young children to care for as well.

For an applicant to the MCF scheme who has no other claims for career breaks, maternity leave etc. is the 15 years postdoc experience an ‘absolute’ or an ‘approximately’ and does the 15 years period apply at the application date or the start of the Fellowship?

We don’t propose to count dates very strictly, so someone whose doctorate was awarded up to or around 15 years would be fine. If applicants are very clearly outwith the target range that we have used to define early career and have no good reason for exemption, they would not be likely to be supported.

The notes for this scheme mention that there is a budget of £8K for research expenses – can this funding also be used for public engagement activities?

Yes, if by that you mean organising events, talks, conferences, presentations and so on.

How flexible are these grants likely to be in terms of full-time/part-time commitment to the Fellowship? For example, if you wanted to have a Fellowship of 6 months could you pro-rata this part-time over 12 months? More specifically, can the Fellowship be shared with funding from another body on a part-time basis?

It would not be a high priority to support someone whose time was not being fully devoted to the Mid-Career Fellowship. The intention is to buy the time of the scholar appointed to one of these awards fully out of their normal teaching and administrative commitments, in order to concentrate on the research for which the Mid-Career Fellowship is being awarded, but we understand that there will always be some duties – PhD supervision is the most usual example – from which this is not possible. There is space on the application form to describe those commitments from which an applicant cannot be relieved. In principle, therefore, it might be possible for an applicant to choose to work part-time, or to have time shared with funding from another body, where a good case for this could be made, especially in terms of the feasibility of the research proposed in the timescale. An applicant would, however, need to be careful in costing the award not to count their time twice, as it can’t be paid again on an FEC basis when it is already covered by another FEC award.

I understand that the research expenses can cover a wide range of possible types of expenditure, but since this is capped at £8000 it will be difficult to finance all these costs under that heading. Is there perhaps another heading for research expenses? Are there separate categories for travel and accommodation?

The main purpose of this scheme is to buy out the time of the applicant from their normal university commitments – it is not designed to provide more general financial support for a research project. It is correct that some research expenses can be asked for under the MCF scheme, but this is capped at £8000, and there is no other capacity for increasing this as part of this award.

If a member of staff is on a fixed term contract which covers the proposed period of the fellowship, would such a person be eligible to apply for the scheme?

Yes. It is essential, however, that the period of the contract covers the whole proposed period of the fellowship. The purpose of the scheme is to allow successful applicants to obtain time freed from their normal teaching and administrative commitments. If the member of staff’s current contract ends during the proposed fellowship period, or before it starts, but there is a commitment from the University to renew the contract, then also, yes, the applicant would be eligible.

Is the salary element of the Mid-Career Fellowship funding intended for the award holder or for teaching replacement?

The basis of the Mid-Career Fellowship is that the awards are offered on the Full Economic Costing model, under which costs are calculated on the basis of the salary of the Mid-Career Fellows themselves. In agreeing to support the award, the institution is agreeing to enable the Mid-Career Fellow to have the time to concentrate on the programme of research and communication set out in the original application, save for those commitments declared on the form from which it is not possible to be relieved (usually PhD supervision). How the institution uses the money awarded for the Fellowship is up to it – we are not paying specifically for a replacement so cannot insist on a full-time teaching replacement being appointed, but it would be good if an opportunity, albeit a short-term one, was opened up for an early career appointment as a result. All the Academy needs to be assured about at the end of the Fellowship is that the programme of research and communication has been carried out as planned, and that teaching and other commitments did not get in the way.

The funding being applied for is to allow time for the writing up of extensive fieldwork, rather than to carry out further research or undertake a programme of communication activity. Through the writing up, it is the intention that various publications arise and there will be opportunity for ongoing communication with existing stakeholders and potentially develop new links with other interested parties, so a programme of communication/dissemination is planned, but the driver for the Fellowship is to have the opportunity thoroughly to interrogate the raw data for a focused period. Is such a focus appropriate for a Fellowship application?

This focus is fine - but we would also stress that the scheme places a strong emphasis on a programme of communication activity. In order for a good application to be presented to our assessors this factor should be taken into consideration.