BA Postdoctoral Fellowship internal competition at Faculty of History

The Faculty is delighted to receive applications in any area of History. In this coming cycle we would be particularly keen to receive applications in the following general areas:  Modern
European History, American History and Modern British History. But we are open to all strong proposals.

Potential candidates should first contact a suitable mentor from among our existing staff; if needing guidance on whom to approach, please contact the Research Director Professor John H. Arnold. Please note that the scheme is competitive, both at the internal stage, and then in the subsequent application to the British Academy. The Faculty will nominate a small number of successful candidates to the University’s selection process; some will then go on to compete at a national level in the funding competition.

The British Academy stipulates that institutions must operate internal competitions in advance of the BA deadlines to ensure only the most appropriate applications are submitted to the BA. The Research Strategy Office (RSO) of the University manages the internal competition. The RSO requires all departments to solicit and rank Expressions of Interest from candidates according to the following procedure:

Prospective candidates must complete the internal Expression of Interest form (available here) and submit this to researchgrants@hist.cam.ac.uk before the deadline of 5pm, 10 August 2020.
Prospective candidates must include their CV (2 A4 sides maximum), a list of publications, and a writing sample (5,000 words, excluding footnotes) as either Word or PDF documents.
Prospective candidates must stipulate an academic mentor. This person MUST be an employee of the University during the period of mentorship, so if a potential mentor currently has a different status they should enquire with the Research Director as to eligibility.
The Faculty will then rank Expressions of Interest and submit a Faculty ranking to the RSO by their deadline of 04 September 2020.
Candidates who are successful in this internal competition will then be asked to prepare and submit their outline applications to the British Academy.
Specific guidance for the 2020/21 competition is not yet published. Here is a link to last year’s information on the British Academy website.

The aim of the British Academy (BA) in making these awards is to offer opportunities for outstanding early career researchers to strengthen their experience of research and teaching in a university environment, which will develop their curriculum vitae and improve their prospects of obtaining permanent lecturing posts by the end of the Fellowship. The primary emphasis is on completion of a significant piece of publishable research, which will be assisted by full membership of an academic community of established scholars working in similar fields.