UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships: internal selection guidance

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UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships: internal selection guidance

King’s Research Strategy & Performance Winter 2025

As with previous rounds of applications to the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships scheme, King’s is running an internal process to select candidates to put forward for Round 11 (which has a funder submission deadline of 16th June 2026). King’s will have a funder cap on its submissions, which we anticipate will be 8 applications (which is our usual limit), plus an additional place ring-fenced for a clinical academic, reflecting the additional strategic investment in the scheme from the MRC. (N.B. institutions may submit as many applications from clinical applicants as they wish within their overall cap.)

For this round, we are running a two-stage selection process following the steps outlined below (for dates and detail, please see table on page 2):

Principal Research; all candidates to be informed of the outcome by end March 2026 at the latest

Scheme overview

The UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships scheme is designed to support outstanding early career researchers and innovators to complete an ambitious programme of research and innovation which allows them to transition to independence, across the UKRI research remit . The scheme is open to those who have not yet received substantive grant funding as PI. UKRI has been clear that it does not want to fund people to just conduct research projects. Instead, it wants to give researchers the opportunity, through the gener ous time and money offered by these fellowships, to develop skills that will allow them to produce research/innovation of a quality that would not be possible without those skills. Ultimately, the integrated research and skills development programmes funde d by the fellowships will make successful applicants leaders in their fields and beyond.

You must be an early career researcher or innovator who is either looking to establish or transition to independence, or developing your own original and ambitious plans within a commercial setting ; you must be based at, and have the support of, an eligible academic or non -academic institution eligible for UKRI funding.

The scheme has a particular focus on tackling “difficult and novel challenges.” The scheme potentially offers up to 7 years of funding (on a 4 + 3 model), with a budget in the first 4 years which reflects the project, with no minimum or maximum; in the past, UKRI notes it has funded projects valued from £300k to £2m at FEC. UKRI is keen that this opportunity be used to propose ambitious and adventurous work that needs an extended period of dedicated time.

For more information, see the scheme’s webpage on the UKRI website: https://www.ukri.org/opportunity/future-leaders-fellowship-round-11/

We have limited information about the details of the scheme, as it opens in early February 2026, but we know that the scheme is overwhelmingly likely to retain the core components of previous rounds, including:

• Faculty initial selection stage (to be completed by close of play on the 2nd March)
• Faculty selections submitted to College-wide selection panel, to be chaired by the Vice

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• Eligibility criteria: UKRI focus on candidates’ transition to independence rather than years post-PhD • Host institution’s salary commitment Employment expectations at the end of the awardYou can view previously recorded information sessions/workshops with King’s awardees via our Workshops, Training & Events page. Please note, these videos were recorded prior to the pre-announcement by UKRI. Expressions of Interest: what to include

All candidates interested in applying via King’s should submit a formal expression of interest to their Faculty – the deadline will vary by Faculty and you should contact your Research Development Manager for that date.

Expressions of interest should include:

1. CV & list of outputs, using the template provided (see separate template) 2. EOI, using the template provided (see separate template); note that NB limited references may be included, and will not count towards the word limit, if applicants deem them necessary. Applicants don’t need to include references at EOI stage unless they wish to highlight their own work. If applicants think it helpful to include a couple of pertinent references, these are outside the word limit. 3. Email confirmation from local leadership (Head of Department or Head of School) that the application is approved, and that the requirement for % salary and long-term position will be met 4. We would be grateful if all applicants submitting an EOI could complete the confidential MS Form which tracks applicant characteristics, found at the link below and strongly encouraged by UKRI so that they can track the characteristics of those interested in the FLF scheme. Please see the form for more information about the purpose of, use of, and storage of this data. Round 11, UKRI FLF Scheme – Fill out form

Please complete all expression of interest materials as one PDF document, in Arial size 11 and then submit to your Faculty Research Development Manager - see contact list at the end of this document.

Timeline for King’s processes Stage When What Applicant EoI deadline Dates are Faculty specific, but likely to be during February 2026 Send your EOI to your Faculty Research Development Manager (contact details below)

Please contact your Faculty’s Research Development Manager as soon as possible to ensure you are aware of your Faculty’s process and deadlines.

Deadlines vary by Faculty.

King’s stage one selection (in Faculty) During February 2026 (as above)

Each Faculty will assess EOIs & select their top 3; these assessments will be shared with the College-wide selection panel.

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Please contact your RDM before beginning an EoI; they will inform you of timelines and are here to answer questions and provide advice.

Research Development Managers and contact emails to submit EoIs for Stage 1 Faculty selection

Faculty RDM Email for EoI Submission Arts & Humanities

Emma Jay Emma.jay@kcl.ac.uk Dentistry, Oral & Craniofacial Sciences Greg Dow Keren.dempsey@kcl.ac.uk Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience Olivier Brock Olivier.brock@kcl.ac.uk King’s Business School Sarah Evans Kbsresearch@kcl.ac.uk Cc: Sarah.l.evans@kcl.ac.uk Law Gil Toffell Lawresearch@kcl.ac.uk Cc: gilad.toffell@kcl.ac.uk Life Sciences & Medicine (Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences; Cardiovascular and Metabolic Medicine and Sarah Davies FoLSM-Research-Office@kcl.ac.uk It is likely that to have Faculty selections completed by 2nd March 2026, the Faculties would be holding assessment meetings in the last week or last fortnight of February 2026.

Faculties should send their top three selections (indicating their priority order) to healthresearchdevelopment@kcl.ac.uk

King’s will be nominating at least one clinician candidate, and faculties with clinical applicants are encouraged to submit at least one clinician candidate, subject to their own quality assessment. King’s stage two selection (College- wide) Mid-March 2026 College-wide selection panel, to be chaired by the Vice-Principal Research & Innovation Applicants informed of decisions By end March 2026 at the latest All applicants informed of selection decisions.

Selected candidates to develop full proposal for submission to UKRI.

UKRI deadline for full

applications

16th June 2026 Completion of the full application for submission to UKRI.

As always, this King’s internal deadline is 5 working days before the UKRI deadline

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Sciences, Life Course and Population Sciences) Life Sciences & Medicine (Immunology & Microbial Sciences, Cancer & Pharmaceutical Sciences, Basic & Medical Biosciences) Greg Dow FoLSM-Research-Office@kcl.ac.uk Natural, Mathematical & Engineering Sciences (Engineering, Informatics) Cecilia Rossiter NMES-research@kcl.ac.uk Natural, Mathematical & Engineering Sciences (Physics, Maths, Chemistry) Mike Ward NMES-research@kcl.ac.uk Natural, Mathematical & Engineering Sciences (Net Zero Centre, Physical Sciences of Life Centre) Jack Matthews NMES-research@kcl.ac.uk

Nursing, Midwifery & Palliative Care Sarah Davies mailto:sarah.k.davies@kcl.ac.ukhilary.c.jones@kcl.ac.uk

Social Science & Public Policy Gil Toffell Gilad.toffell@kcl.ac.uk

Research areas