Junior Research Fellowships (JRFs) are fixed term awards of college membership, given to early career academics, typically before final submission of their PhD or shortly afterwards. JRFs – like other early career fellowships – are a chance to pursue your post PhD research: they give you dedicated research time in a vibrant academic environment along with opportunities to engage with a range of academics, and to build your track record toward a next step in academia. They are awarded on the basis of research excellence and are highly competitive.
Stipendiary JRFs include a salary, non-stipendiary JRFs do not. The connection to a college sometimes, but not always, includes benefits such as accommodation or meals. Teaching, and other college responsibilities, vary depending on the college and position. Some colleges will have fellowships that are more like junior lectureships with a greater teaching load alongside research.
Application Procedure
Look for JRFs on jobs.ac.uk, jobs.cam.ac.uk, the Cambridge Reporter, the Oxford Gazette, the Guardian and The Times HE section. Some may only be advertised on college websites.
- Application deadlines vary but be prepared for deadlines as early as September.
- Review eligibility requirements carefully for limits on amount of time since first degree / since beginning PhD or for particular subject areas. You can apply in some cases before finishing your PhD.
- Overseas applicants: colleges should specify whether you need the right to work in the UK or whether they could sponsor your visa.
- If you have uncertainties about the application procedure or eligibility requirements, you can call the college for clarification.
- Application procedures vary from college to college – this in an indication of what to expect but the information for each application should be read very carefully. After the initial application, a longlist (approximately 30 applicants) will have their written work requested. This work will typically be evaluated by anonymous specialist assessors (usually external). A final shortlist of applicants will often be invited for interview although not always.
- Competitions often will have high numbers of applications (150-250 applications per place, or even up to 700 applications for a big group competitions). However, numbers are unpredictable: one subject-specific competition had 16 applicants one year, and 86 the next.
Tips:
- Create a spreadsheet to track your applications (deadlines, documents needed, notes on the college, etc)
- JRFs are not the only source of funds and experience - research, check and plan for other fellowship opportunities.
- Consider the timing of your PhD submission relative to JRF application deadlines and start dates
- Ask for feedback from referees, supervisors etc
JRF application document tips
Tips: Research proposal
- Have a draft version of your proposal ready to develop.
- It needs to address the ‘whys’: why I should be doing the research; why here; why now.
- Start preparing your application as early as you can – when the deadlines come, there can be a lot at once!
- In your research statement / proposal give detail on which journals you plan to submit your work. Specify concrete outcomes (book? Articles?), preferably with a timeline.
- Your proposal should be comprehensible to academics who are not in your field, i.e. only semi-technical and without jargon. Get someone else not in your field to read it and give feedback. Ask friends, colleagues etc to read over the proposal and give you feedback.
Tips: Writing sample
- Requirements will depend on your subject – it could be parts of your thesis or it could be publications (you will be asked to specify your contribution)
- For scientists, you may be sending stand-alone journal articles. For arts and humanities researchers, you may be selecting parts of your PhD / book which you may need to put it in context.
Tips: referees/readers
- 2-3 referees, of whom one can be your PhD supervisor. It's the referees' role to suggest readers to college. Referees are very important - choose them carefully.
- Remember to keep those who aren’t your supervisor informed about the progress of your PhD
- Ask referees’ advice about what written work to submit.
- Readers are very important and should include people outside of Cambridge. Make sure (via your referees, or direct, if your referees take suggestions of readers from you) that they understand what a JRF is.
- Ensure your non-supervisor referees are able to spend the time to read your work properly.
- Give your referees a list of deadlines arranged in date order; your CV; your research proposal(s) – and plenty of advance warning!
- Colleges may not give referees much instruction. Check what your referees want, but it’s good to send them the advert and flag up any salient points, e.g. teaching experience is / is not required in this competition.
JRF Interviews and presentations
Not all colleges will interview for their JRFs. However, there are two important points to consider if you are called for interview
- The panels are often a mixture of specialists and experts from various disciplines, often covering a wide cross-section from the arts/humanities through to the sciences
Tips:
- Talk about your research in a way that is accessible to people outside your own discipline, as well as being convincing to an expert.
- Be able to answer: Why is your project is the must-do project in X [broad discipline], and why are you the right person to do it?
- Practise soundbites – i.e. describing your research for variously one minute, five minutes, and ten minutes.
- Practise explaining your research to non-specialists whom you know, asking them to repeat back to you what they understood.
- Try to find out who will be on your selection panel, read their research profiles and the profiles of other researchers in college. Think about how you would fit it and how to present your work to them.
- In talking about your research, it is important to show independence from your PI/PhD supervisor.
- As well as being interested in your research, they may be interested in what you can contribute to the college
Tips:
- research the college thoroughly and to talk to current JRFs at different colleges if possible.
- Think about what it is about being part of that particular college that is attractive to you.
- Teaching may or may not come up in discussion, but it is a topic worth preparing. Find out what you can about teaching in the college and think about the range of topics/level of students that you would be able to teach. Remember though that contributions can be broader than teaching – for example, does the college run a seminar series you could contribute to? Do you have industry connections you might be able to bring in for talks? Do you have expertise that can contribute in other ways? (e.g. to a college’s sustainability strategy). You may also be asked about your future career plans after the JRF and how this will move you toward your next step.
Preparing for an interview or presentation
- You will be told the format in advance (likely approximately 30 minutes, possibly with a short presentation to start)
- Do practice interviews
- When an interviewer in a mixed /specialist panel asks a specialist question, it’s ok to give two answers: first answer the specialist, then "allow me to rephrase this in more general terms".
- It takes time for audiences to absorb new information. Use analogies the panel can relate to.
- See also the section on JRFs from our guide on Interview Skills for Academia.