With some 600 new History doctoral students graduating from British universities each year, together with strong competition from international students and previous years’ History PhDs, a Fellowships Officer’s work is never done.
The IHR hosts several competitions for one-year and six-month Junior Research Fellowships, intended as writing-up awards for doctoral students or as first postdoctoral positions for recent graduates, as well as several smaller prizes and bursaries in a variety of historical areas.
Currently underway are the Mellon Fellowships in the Humanities, which fund doctoral students at universities in the US and Canada to undertake archival research in the UK. Applications will be sent out to our panel of experts shortly, and applicants will be informed of the outcome by early May.
The end of January sees the opening of all our other doctoral and postdoctoral Fellowships competitions. Applications for Jacobite Studies Trust Fellowships must be in by 28 February, with interviews likely to take place in mid/late April. The deadline for receipt of IHR doctoral Fellowship applications (Scouloudi, Thornley, RHS) is 7 March; interviews will be held at the IHR in early/mid June. The EHS, Past & Present, and Pearsall Fellowship competitions all close on 4 April, with interviews held in late June/July.
In terms of other funding, applications for the Scouloudi Historical Awards in aid of academic publication must be in by 17 March, with decisions made and applicants informed before the end of June. Details of the remaining small awards may be found here, and I would draw special attention to the IHR Bursaries, funded by the IHR Friends, the Alwyn Ruddock Bequest, and by former IHR Director Professor David Bates. These provide £500 for doctoral students not registered at institutions in London to undertake short research trips to the IHR and other archives in the capital. As well as enabling students to access a wider range of resources for their research, these awards very much strengthen early career CVs, by demonstrating to prospective employers and postdoctoral funders that others have deemed their research worthy of financial support.
Anyone interested in applying can find more information here.