ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowships Scheme 2022 — SeNSS Doctoral Training Partnership

As the SeNSS Doctoral Training Partnership Grant has now ended, SeNSS will no longer be offering Post-Doctoral Fellowships (PDFs). However, contingent on the outcome of an ESRC funding bidding process, SeNSS’ two successor DTPs - SENSS and SEDarc - may offer PDFs for an October 2024 start.

Should these two DTPs be successful in being awarded funding to offer PDFs, you can view the SENSS DTP funding opportunities here, and the SEDarc funding opportunities here.

Over its lifetime, SeNSS offered six ESRC-funded Post-Doctoral Fellowships (PDFs) each year. These provided an opportunity for early career researchers to consolidate their PhDs through developing publications, their networks, and their research and professional skills. For an example of an excellent application, please view the Post-Doctoral Fellowship FAQs developed by SeNSS.

WHAT WAS ON OFFER?

The PDF grants provided funding for up to one year full-time, or up to two years part-time. In exceptional cases, applicants could apply for a fellowship for up to 18 months; however, this had to be fully justified by the programme of activities being proposed.

Fellowships covered:

the Fellow's salary costs;
indirect costs;
estate costs; and,
up to £10,000 of other costs.

WHO WAS ELIGIBLE FOR A SeNSS ESRC-FUNDED PDF?

The calls were open to those who had:

1) completed their PhD at a research organisation that was part of a current ESRC-funded Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP). View the list of DTPs here; AND,

2) been awarded their PhD or have passed their viva voce (or passed with minor corrections) by the application deadline AND and have been awarded their PhD by the Fellowship start date; AND,

3) no more than 12 months of active post-doctoral experience since passing their viva (allowing for career breaks) by the competition closing date.

Please note that those who have passed their viva voce with major corrections were only able to apply to the following year’s call when their PhD has been awarded. This was to ensure that all Fellows were able to commence their work by the annual start date of 1 October.

WHICH UNIVERSITIES COULD I APPLY TO?

The SeNSS Consortium consists of ten universities. View those ten universities here.

WHICH PATHWAYS OR DISCIPLINES COULD I APPLY FOR?

SeNSS offered Post-Doctoral Fellowships across 13 Pathways. View a list of all of the pathways here.

HOW DID THE APPLICATION PROCESS WORK?

Applicants read the ESRC’s documents (see below) carefully to ensure they were eligible for a PDF.
Next, applicants thought about and drafted their topic and programme of work, as well as thinking about who would be best-suited to mentoring them during their PDF. Once they’d identified someone at the university at which they’d like to be based, they’d make contact with that senior academic, who - if supportive - would be their primary mentor.
SeNSS required its Fellows to have two mentors during their fellowship: one based at the Fellow’s home institution, and one at another SeNSS institution. SeNSS took this position, which was endorsed by the ESRC, because we believe that having a second mentor from a different SeNSS university strengthened the Fellow’s research, exposed the Fellow to different institutional practices, and increased the Fellow’s access to professional academic and non-academic networks. Our current and former Fellows’ experience bore this out.
Applicants were required to submit an expression of interest form (EoI) as a first step.
Partner universities decided, on the basis of the EoI which applicants they wished to invite to submit full applications via SeNSS’ online application portal, HEIapply.

ESRC PDF APPLICATION DOCUMENTS