Stipendiary Research Fellowship in the History and Culture of the Countries of the Silk Roads

Through a generous donation, King’s College Cambridge is able to invite applications for a four-year Research Fellowship from those who are completing or have recently completed a doctorate and who intend to pursue a substantial research project on some aspect of the Silk Roads countries, societies, and cultures of Asia from the Western borders of China to the Mediterranean Sea, as well as their relationships with China in the East and Europe in the West. The research project can be situated in any discipline or interdisciplinary position and can address any aspect of the movement of materials, knowledge, cultural practices and technologies between China and the Mediterranean or any sub-region between the two at any period up to the present day.

This Research Fellowship is part of a broader programme, which includes lectures, seminars and conferences, as well as graduate scholarships and further Research Fellowships. As well as pursuing their own research project, the successful candidate will be expected to play an active role in developing the programme and in organizing academic activity concerned with the countries of the Silk Roads outside of their own specific project.

The ideal candidate for this Research Fellowship will have a strong background in a relevant discipline, including but not limited to anthropology, sociology, urban studies, architecture, history, environment and ecology, science and technology studies, political economy, and development, and be completing or have completed an outstanding doctoral thesis. It is not a requirement that the candidate’s doctoral studies or the work that they submit in support of their application should have concerned questions of the Silk Roads specifically, but candidates will be expected to show in their applications that their academic background connects to the very broad area of the studies of the Silk Roads countries and how their plans for their future work relates to the work that they have already done.

The successful candidate will join a lively research community which includes Research Fellows and College Research Associates as well as Fellows who hold University posts working across a wide range of problems. It is the aim of Research Fellowship projects to develop and consolidate crucial fields of study that are currently too narrowly restricted in their practitioners and/or their objects of analysis, and to strengthen the intellectual framework for international and global approaches to the humanities by tackling related issues that can only properly be understood when tackled globally. The Fellow in Silk Roads Studies will similarly be expected to ‘think big’ and consider the contemporary resonance of their project.

Research Fellows are members of the Governing Body, with the full privileges of all Fellows. These include all meals and the possibility of an office and accommodation in College properties. Currently, the stipend of a Research Fellow is £34,800 (to be revised). An additional living-out allowance of up to £4,180, depending on income, is available to those Fellows not living in college-owned accommodation. Research Fellows may claim research expenses of up to £2,000 in any academic year.

The closing date for applications, including references, is 23.59pm on 8th November 2026 Further information may be obtained here: Click the 'Apply' button above.

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