As part of the Political Geography Research Group’s mentoring series, one suggestion that came up was to compile an overview of potential postdoctoral research opportunities for early-career researchers (ECRs). With many thanks to Yu-Shan Tseng – one of the committee’s ECR representatives – for collecting the information here!
The below table is by no means intended to be exhaustive (and the amount of details vary), but provides an overview of some significant schemes in the UK and abroad.
| Funding scheme | Need to have submitted PhD by deadline? | Next opening date | Next closing date | Resubmission allowed? | Notes | Pre-submission information |
| BA postdoctoral fellowship | Yes | 02-Jul-25 | 01-Oct-25 | No | higher % success rate | 3 years |
| Leverhulme early career fellowship | Yes | 20-Feb-25 | Yes | https://www.leverhulme.ac.uk/early-career-fellowships | ||
| Wellcome Trust early career awards | Possibly not – 4 years research exp. | 30-Sep-25 | best employer | https://wellcome.org/grant-funding/schemes/early-career-awards#key-dates-d66b | ||
| ESRC Standard Grant | ||||||
| ESRC new investigator | Yes | Open | No | must have secure employment + 3-6 months, less competitiive, differently evaluated based on level of experience, need to be pre-selected by the host institute | https://www.ukri.org/opportunity/esrc-responsive-mode-new-investigator-grants-round-two/ | |
| ESRC postdotoral fellowships | Yes | 25-Mar-25 | No | https://ubel-dtp.ac.uk/current-students/postdoctoral-fellowships/ | ||
| NIHR Advanced Fellowship | Yes | 23-Jan-25 | https://www.nihr.ac.uk/funding/advanced-fellowship-round-13/97023 | |||
| ESRC Future Leaders Fellowships | No | No | Need to be pre-selected by the host institute | https://www.ukri.org/what-we-do/developing-people-and-skills/future-leaders-fellowships/ | ||
| All Souls College/Oxford University | No – but confirmed date of submission | https://www.asc.ox.ac.uk/five-year-post-doctoral-research-fellowships | ||||
| ERC Starting Grant | Yes | October | Yes | 5 years/Up to €1.5m (+€1m) | 2-7 years post PhD (or equivalent doctoral degree) | |
| Marie Sklodowska-Curie Postdoctoral (MSCA) Fellowships – European | September | Yes | Fixed rate (around €200K) | Up to 8 years post-PhD |
Again, the details above are subject to change, so please check the specific information on each scheme.
In addition to these funding schemes, other channels where postdoctoral research opportunities are occasionally shared include the PolGRG, CritGeog Forum, and Human Geography Forum Jisc-mailing lists; and jobs.ac.uk (primarily UK focused).