British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowships

The College of Arts and Law at the University of Birmingham encourages outstanding postdoctoral researchers to apply to the British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship, for Fellowships hosted at Birmingham starting in the 2026/27 academic year. These three-year fellowships are intended to enable scholars in the arts and humanities and social sciences to complete a major piece of publishable research and to establish their profile within their field and across the wider academic community.

Ranked 64^th in the QS Rankings for Arts and Humanities, the College of Arts and Law is home to a thriving research culture across five Schools: Birmingham Law School; English, Drama and Creative Studies; History and Cultures; Languages, Cultures, Art History and Music; and Philosophy, Theology and Religion. Research facilities include our outstanding collections and libraries, the Barber Institute of Fine Art, and eye tracking, motion capture, digital media, VR, AR, data processing, and corpus linguistics laboratories dedicated to arts and humanities researchers. Further information about the College can be found here: https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/artslaw.

Applications are welcomed from colleagues with strong research proposals who are eligible for the Fellowship because they:

• Are in possession of a doctoral degree, defined as having completed, or being on track to complete, their viva voce by 1^st April 2026
• Are a UK/EEA national or completed their doctorate at a UK university or have a strong prior association with the UK academic community
• Have not yet held a permanent academic appointment
• Are within three years of having completed their doctorate (i.e., did their viva voce no earlier than 1 April 2023)
• Have not previously applied for the BA Postdoctoral Fellowship.

The College of Arts and Law will select prospective applicants for the Fellowship based on the quality of the proposal and fit within the College. To enable this selection processes, candidates must send the following information by email to Samantha Taylor, Research Support Officer for the College of Arts and Law (s.l.taylor.1@bham.ac.uk) by 4pm on Friday 18th July 2025:  

• A description of their proposed project (max. 2 A4 pages)
• A copy of their CV (max. 2 A4 pages)
• A summary of why the University of Birmingham and the relevant School are a good fit for the project (max. 300 words)
• The name of their proposed mentor and confirmation they have agreed to act as mentor for the application and fellowship
• The name of their proposed referee

Incomplete expressions of interest will not be considered.

Selected candidates will be supported by their mentors and the University’s Research Strategy and Services Division to develop their full proposal, which must be submitted to the British Academy by 5pm on 1^st October 2025.

Appointments at the University of Birmingham are dependent on the award of the Fellowship.

We know that diversity strengthens our research community and actively encourage applicants from diverse career paths and all backgrounds.

For more information on the scheme’s aims and eligibility criteria, please visit: https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/postdoctoral-fellowships/.

For general enquiries about the scheme or working at the University of Birmingham, please contact Samantha Taylor at s.l.taylor.1@bham.ac.uk.