Royal Academy of Engineering Fellowships - 2025 Internal Coordinated Process

This is a capped scheme, candidates must get in touch with their departments asap as many will run their own selection processes before the below University-wide selection process deadline.

Scheme overview

The Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) has launched their annual call for applications to their Fellowship scheme. Oxford can submit up to four candidates and at least two of these candidates must self-identify as being from a group that is persistently underrepresented within the engineering profession in the UK. The RAEng have identified the following groups that are currently clearly significantly underrepresented in UK engineering research for this call:

• Women
• Black people, including those with any mixed ethnicity with Black ethnic background(s)
• Disabled people

Oxford's selected candidates who self-identify as belonging to one of the above groups will also be put forward to the RAEng's Access Mentoring Scheme as support for their final application preparation. Please follow this link for further information and guidance on the Access Mentoring Scheme: https://raeng.org.uk/access-mentoring  

Aim and scope of scheme

The RAEng Fellowships are designed to promote excellence in engineering. They provide support for high-quality early career engineers to encourage them to develop successful academic research careers.

The scheme provides funding for five years to encourage the best researchers to remain in the academic engineering sector. In addition to the direct financial support, the scheme offers:

• mentoring support from an Academy Fellow to offer advice on research and career development;
• reduction of teaching and administrative duties to dedicate time to research;
• training and additional funding opportunities;
• networking opportunities with other Research Fellows and Academy Fellows;
• being part of the RAEng Awardee Excellence Community.

For the 2025 round, the previous Engineering for Development Research Fellowship (EDRF) category has been removed. Applications which would previously have fallen under the EDRF umbrella are still eligible to apply under the general Research Fellowship call and will be treated no differently to Research Fellowship applications in the current round.

The Academy is in discussions with UK based medical charities to co-fund medical engineering research that improves the health and well-being of society. Our current co-founder is Rosetrees (https://rosetrees.org.uk/). Applicants that are in the remit of these charities will be contacted at interview stage to confirm their interest in being co-funded. Please note that co-funded research fellowships will be required to sign both Academy and medical charity terms and conditions.

Full scheme details can be found on the RAEng website.

Support available

The scheme provides funding for five years. Each application is capped at a maximum contribution from the Academy of £625,000 over the five-year period, at 80% of full economic costs.

Research Fellowships can be held part-time, and for the 2025 round do not now need to be the only source of employment. However, the part-time requirement is limited to a minimum of 50% of the fellowship time and the other source of employment should be external to the host organisation. The request for a part-time Research Fellowship (at no less than 50% of full-time equivalent) must be made clear within the application.

Eligibility

• The proposed research project must be in an engineering subject area (civil, construction & environmental; materials & mining; chemical & process; aerospace; transport & mechanical; manufacturing & design; electrical & electronic; energy & power; medical & bioengineering; computing & communications).
• Early career researchers whose PhD/DPhil has been awarded (or the PhD/DPhil has been unconditionally approved) no more than four years before the submission deadline: 17 September 2025*.
• Applicants who have applied to the scheme before and were unsuccessful are eligible to reapply.
• Fellowships must begin between 1 August 2026 and 31 October 2026.

* This time period includes applicants’ work experience in academia or/and in industry. A margin of up to three months more than the four-year limit is acceptable. If applicants have had maternity/paternity leave or other extenuating circumstances (e.g. extended sick leave, national service, or caring responsibilities), this will be taken into consideration and should be noted on their internal application.

Internal coordinated bids process (deadline: 12 noon, 11 June 2025)

Candidates must get in touch with their Oxford host department in good time before the above deadline. Many departments will set earlier internal deadlines and run their own selection processes to meet the below cap, late expressions of interest can therefore not always be accommodated. For assistance with identifying the relevant departmental contact, please email research@mpls.ox.ac.uk.

Departments are capped at 6 candidates to the internal prioritisation, and candidates must be numerically ranked by their department. This cap includes candidates that are currently external to the University.

Candidates should upload the following as a single PDF on IRAMS by 12 noon, 11 June 2025:

• Case for support template* (found on IRAMS)
• CV (maximum 3 sides of A4)
• Letter of support from an academic colleague (e.g., supervisor / mentor / collaborator) able to comment on the impact of your work (maximum one side of A4, further details are in the Case for Support document on IRAMS)

*If needed, up to one page of figures and one page of references can be included with the internal case for support template. An X5 costing is not needed for the internal application.

Assessment Criteria

The internal selection panel will include academics from a wide remit of engineering areas, however they may not be specialists in your research area. Candidates should therefore prepare their internal application for non-specialist reviewers (Stage 1 of the RAEng fellowships application process).

The panel will score and comment on applications against the below assessment criteria:

1.       Quality of candidate

• Quality of the applicant’s research track record.
• Potential of the applicant to become a future leader in their chosen field.
• Potential to act as an ambassador and advocate for engineering research.

 2.       Research quality and vision

• Quality of the applicant’s research vision and their potential to establish an independent research career in their chosen field of engineering.
• Quality of the proposed research programme including: timeliness, novelty, vision and ambition that are achievable within the 5-year research timeline.
• Consideration of diversity and inclusion in research and team development.

 3.       Research environment

• Quality and level of support and commitment from external collaborators. Letters of support from collaborators are not requested for the internal selection process, however candidates should identify all appropriate support (collaborators and facilities) in Oxford or beyond. The Case for Support should also include details on how the collaborators will support the research programme (e.g. which goals/objectives/methodologies will they be involved in).

 4.       Beneficiaries and impact

• Extent to which beneficiaries will benefit from the proposed research and the potential to translate research outcomes into societal and economic impact. Beneficiaries should also include non-academic end users (e.g. industry).

Candidates are strongly encouraged to review the common feedback section in the RAEng call guidance and consider the below questions (based on common internal panel feedback) when preparing their application:

• Does the research programme have strong alignment with the RAEng fellowship remit? Is the proposal better suited to another scheme/funder remit (e.g. UKRI)?
• Does the ambition, breadth and impact of the research proposal fit the remit of a 5-year independent fellowship programme?
• What is the development/technical training you would get from an independent fellowship vs. a postdoctoral position? How would you be developing an independent research niche separate from your current supervisor?
• What is the novel or step-change difference the research proposed will have on the research area? How does this stand-out from current work in this research area?
• What is the wider vision and impact of the work you are proposing? How will this be exploited and how will end-users/beneficiaries be engaged?
• Have you engaged all appropriate collaborators (within Oxford and beyond) to maximise the impact of your proposal?

Deadlines

 * Please note, this scheme operates on a 'first come, first served' basis and so waiting until the deadline may result in mentors no longer being available - early application to the Access Mentoring scheme is encouraged.

Contact

For queries on the internal coordinated process, contact research@mpls.ox.ac.uk.