Career Development Fellowship

The Career Development Fellowship (CDF) is a four-year, postdoctoral research fellowship that aims to support the retention in STEM of researchers from underrepresented backgrounds. Fellowships will provide funding to conduct high-quality research and a comprehensive programme of mentoring, training and networking opportunities to support award holders in establishing a successful research career in the UK. This scheme provides the most talented early career scientists from underrepresented groups in STEM with research funding and high-quality training opportunities to build a strong base for a successful research career. The scheme has been developed following cross-sector roundtables and Royal Society-commissioned reports which looked at trends across 11 years of Higher Education Statistics Authority data. This process identified a need for interventions across the academic pipeline to support researchers from Black or Mixed Black African, Black Caribbean or other Black heritage backgrounds, particularly researchers making the transition from postgraduate to early postdoctoral stages. The scheme is currently offered as a pilot with researchers from Black heritage. If successful, the pilot may be broadened to researchers from other underrepresented groups. The fellowship aims to support talented early career researchers from underrepresented backgrounds in taking the first step towards establishing their research in a UK institution, provide researchers with the opportunity to undertake high-quality curiosity-led research, and provide the most promising researchers with the mentoring, networking opportunities, training and support required to establish a successful research career in the UK.