How the LECF competition works at Cambridge

The LECF is a national competition for early career researchers, normally no more than 4 years after submitting their doctoral dissertation. The Leverhulme Trust determines the eligibility rules and sets the requirements for application materials – so you need to follow the instructions on the Leverhulme Trust’s website.  All queries not answered here should be addressed to the Leverhulme Trust.

Matching funding required

Leverhulme will provide 50% of the salary costs up to a limit of £26k per annum for 3 years, so the host institution has to find matching funds (and any shortfall from the actual costs). A letter guaranteeing the remainder of the salary costs is a requirement for entry to the national competition.

Matching funding at Cambridge

The Isaac Newton Trust undertakes to match the salary costs up to the limit set by the Leverhulme Trust for any full- or part-time candidate successful in the national competition. In order to identify which candidates can be supported with offers of matched funding, we hold an internal competition. INT typically makes about 50 offers of support in the event of success nationally.

It is possible to enter the national competition with offers of matching funding from a host lab or department and so bypass our internal competition; if a candidate supported in this way succeeds in the national competition, INT will expect the host to stand by their offer but INT may agree retrospectively to share some of the costs (see FAQs).