Postdoctoral Fellowships

The ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowships Scheme for fellowships commencing October 2026 has now been announced.

There are significant differences to the scheme for 2026 recruitment. 

Please see below for information on the fellowships and the application process. 

Full information is available in the Call Specification. The ESRC has also produced a Frequently Asked Questions document.

ESRC Fellowships aim to provide a career development opportunity for those in the immediate postdoctoral stage of their career, offering fellows the opportunity to consolidate their PhD through developing publications, their networks, and their research and professional skills. For the majority this is likely to be a research career in academia; however, those with a clearly articulated programme of activities to support their transition to a research career outside of academia will also be considered.

For October 2026 entry the Fellowships will last up to 9 months (or up to 18 months part-time equivalent). Fellowships are intended to start on 1 October 2026 and full-time fellowships must finish by 30 June 2027. Exceptions will only be considered for part-time awards, parental or sick leave.

1. Eligibility

2. Timeline

3. LSE DTP application process

4. Mandatory attachments

5. Further information 

1. Eligibility 

This opportunity is open to applicants who have completed their PhD at a UK research organisation (RO) and applicants must be aligned to an ESRC accredited subject area. The LSE ESRC DTP has accredited subject areas across 19 departments, which are listed here.

Applicants are not required to have previously held an ESRC-funded studentship in order to be eligible to apply. 

Applicants must:

• have been awarded a PhD or have passed their viva voce with minor amendments by the application deadline of 1 June 2026 and have been awarded their PhD by the fellowship start date of 1 October 2026, and;
• have no more than 15 months of active postdoctoral experience. This is measured from the applicant’s viva voce pass date to the application deadline of 1 June 2026.
• submit an application to one DTP only. If an applicant submits to more than one DTP, all of their applications will be withdrawn from further consideration.

Please also note: 

• New research cannot be funded through these awards.
• The call is not open to applicants who are established, permanent members of staff in an academic position with a research component. 

Please see the ESRC Call Specification and Frequently Asked Questions documents for further information on eligibility.

2. Timeline 

Applicants need to ensure that they will be available to be contacted between 3 July to 13 July 2026 to respond to nominations and submit their proposals to the ESRC. Decisions will be confirmed to all applicants in by end August. Appointments will start on 1 October 2026.

3. LSE DTP Application process

We expect a high level of competition for these fellowships. The selection process involves several stages.

Stage One

As described in the call, you will first need to identify and contact a suitable mentor from one of the 19 LSE ESRC DTP accredited subject areas before submitting your application. Applicants can contact the relevant department or reach out directly via the LSE staff search page. 

You should contact the relevant mentor as soon as possible, and no later than 30 April 2026. This recommended deadline is set to allow prospective mentors to provide you with a copy of their statement in support of your application, and their CV. Applicants are advised to share their application form with the prospective mentor during this initial stage.

You should complete your application and submit it, including all mandatory attachments, to LSE ESRC DTP via the LSE e-recruitment system. The ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship will be advertised on this site.

The online e-recruitment system used for applications to the scheme at LSE will be live soon and details will appear on this page at the earliest possible opportunity.

The system will then close at 23:59 (UK time) on 1 June 2026.

Stage Two

After the submission deadline has passed, applications which do not include all mandatory attachments will receive an ‘unsuccessful’ notification from the LSE e-recruitment system. Applications which include all mandatory attachments will be reviewed by departmental panels based on the ESRC assessment criteria provided in the Call Specification. If an application is not nominated to the DTP, the candidate will receive an ‘unsuccessful’ notification from the LSE e-recruitment system.

Stage Three

LSE DTP Postdoctoral Fellowship Awards Panel will consider applications nominated by departments. The panel will rank the nominated applications, and the top five applicants will receive offers from the DTP. Remaining applications will be placed on a reserve list until five fellowship posts have been accepted by successful applicants.

Stage Four

For final confirmation of award, successful applicants who accept their postdoctoral fellowship offer from LSE DTP are required to submit their proposal to ESRC. 

4. Mandatory Attachments

Applications that do not contain all applicable mandatory attachments will not be considered. All mandatory attachments are listed below.

 For all applications

1.    LSE-ESRC-PDF-Application-Form 2026.

2.    Case for support (maximum four sides of A4).

3.    LSE ESRC PDF Justification of Resources Form 2026 (maximum two sides of A4) - please use this template.

4.    Applicant CV (maximum two sides of A4).

5.    Mentor statement and summary CV (maximum two sides of A4).

Dependent on individual project:

6.    Data Management Plan – whilst applicants cannot collect any new data as part of this fellowship, there may be exceptional circumstances where existing data is re-used or combined with other data to form a new dataset. In those instances it is a requirement of the ESRC Research Data Policy to include a Data Management Plan with any application. (maximum three sides of A4).

7.    List of Publications (bibliography)– mandatory if any references are cited in the proposal (applicant’s own publications should be included in their CV).

8.    Overseas Institutional Letter of Support – mandatory if you are intending to visit an overseas institution as part of the fellowship (maximum one side of A4 on headed paper).

9.    Project Partner Letter of Support – mandatory if you are intending to work with a project partner (maximum one side of A4 per partner on headed paper).

More details about what information these attachments should include can be found in pages 6-9 of the ESRC Call Specification.

5. Further Information

The ESRC website includes resources on preparing research proposals, and information about ethics, research impact and development collaborations.

The ESRCs impact toolkit is a helpful reference for developing impact strategies. 

ESRC Research Ethics Guidance provides useful information on ethics issues to consider during the lifecycle of a project.

ESRC Research Data Policy defines the roles and responsibilities of ESRC grant holders for research data.

IMPORTANT NOTE

Applicants can only submit one application to this funding opportunity which must be made to a single DTP. DTPs will share the names of applicants and the research organisation at which they obtained their PhD with each other. If an applicant is found to have submitted more than one application, all of their applications will be withdrawn from further consideration. In submitting your application, you are consenting to sharing that information with other DTPs. Applications data will be hosted by the University of Durham.

Contact mechanism

Queries about the scheme that are not covered in the above guidance and documents should be sent to phdacademy@lse.ac.uk with the subject ‘ESRC PDF Application Scheme Query'. We receive a very high level of interest in this scheme and you may not receive an immediate response.