Faraday Discovery Fellowships
Forecasted
Faraday Discovery Fellowships support mid-career STEM research leaders to pursue ambitious, original research, tackle difficult scientific questions and build world-leading teams in the UK.
Funder: Royal Society
Due Dates (Anticipated): February 2027 (2027 invited Stage 2) | September 2027 (2028 Stage 1) | February 2028 (2028 invited Stage 2)
Funding Amounts: Up to £8 million over 10 years; requests above £6 million require exceptional scientific justification
Summary: Long-term, investigator-led fellowships supporting mid-career STEM research leaders to tackle challenging questions and build world-leading teams in the UK.
Key Information: Fellows must devote at least 80% of their time to research and at least 50% to their Faraday fellowship.
Description
The Royal Society’s Faraday Discovery Fellowships provide stable, long-term support for outstanding mid-career research leaders. Each award supports a single Principal Investigator in establishing a research team and pursuing an ambitious, original research vision addressing difficult and intractable problems. The programme aims both to attract researchers from overseas and retain outstanding researchers and their teams in the UK.
The fellowships cover the Society’s natural sciences and engineering remit without thematic priorities. Interdisciplinary collaborations, including work outside STEM, and translation or commercialisation can form part of the programme where consistent with its remit. Alongside advancing transformative research, the programme supports the next generation of research leaders through mentoring, training and networking, with development opportunities also available to grant-funded postdoctoral researchers.
