The AHRC’s Fellowships scheme has been revised in order to enhance the development of research leadership across the arts and humanities. The scheme now provides time for research leaders, or potential future research leaders, to undertake focused individual research alongside collaborative activities which have the potential to generate a transformative impact on their subject area and beyond. In addition to demonstrating support for high quality, world leading research and associated outputs, proposals must include collaborative activities to support the development of the Fellow’s capacity for research leadership in the arts and humanities.
Fellowships are supported as a partnership with Research Organisations. Applicants should discuss any potential application with their Research Organisation at an early stage, as strong evidence of institutional support for the proposed Fellow’s career and leadership development is required as part of the application process.
Applications for Fellowships will be welcomed for research in any subject area within the AHRC’s remit. Proposals may be for research at a range of stages of development, provided that substantial high quality research outputs are planned to emerge directly from the Fellowship. A range of activities, including knowledge exchange, can be included in Fellowship proposals and the scheme incorporates elements of the former Fellowships in the Creative and Performing Arts and Knowledge Transfer Fellowships schemes.
This route supports applications from early career researchers with outstanding future leadership potential who meet the eligibility criteria outlined in the Funding Guide. There is a separate route for mid and senior researchers.
The early career route of the Fellowships scheme provides salary and associated costs for periods of between 6 and 24 months. Proposals with a full economic cost of between £50,000 and £250,000 may be submitted.
Further details about changes to the scheme’s aims, eligibility requirements and assessment criteria are detailed in the latest version of the 
Research Funding Guide (v1.7 January 2012) (pdf 919kb)
Fellowships changes FAQs (pdf 84kb)
Highlight Notice
Highlight notices are intended to stimulate proposals under specified themes or initiatives in order to rapidly advance thinking in these areas. Highlight notices are being offered as opportunites within existing AHRC research schemes and are therefore assessed under the same criteria and assessment process.
A highlight notice is currently in place under the Fellowship (Standard and Early Career routes) scheme for the four themes that emerged from the Future Directions consultation:
and to the new AHRC-led cross-Council Programme on:
The Fellowships scheme does not operate under fixed deadlines. You may submit a proposal at any point during the year. Please note that the assessment process for applications submitted to the Fellowships scheme (Standard and Early Career routes) takes approximately 30 weeks and the earliest start date for a project should be no earlier than 9 months after submission to the AHRC.
However, please note that the earliest start date for proposals submitted under the revised scheme is 1 January 2013.
On occasions, there might be a delay in obtaining the peer reviews for an application and this may result in the assessment process taking longer. In such circumstances, the AHRC will contact the applicant to inform them of any delay.
For both routes of the Fellowships scheme you must submit an application through the cross-council Joint Electronic Submission - (JE-S) System. If you need any assistance to use the system, please contact the JE-S helpdesk on 01793 444164 or on JesHelp@rcuk.ac.uk.
AHRC Funding Guide (pdf 919kb) provides an overview of the different routes of the Fellowships Scheme. It details the eligibility criteria, assessment criteria, information on how to apply, eligible dates and terms and conditions of awards. You must ensure that you meet all of the eligibility criteria before submitting an application.
The AHRC work with the RCUK Shared Services Centre (SSC) to deliver all of our funding activities. All queries regarding eligibility for funding and applications in progress and also queries regarding current awards, should be directed to the SSC team dealing with your subject area using the contacts page.