Leverhulme Early Career Fellowships

The Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship Competition 2026

The Leverhulme Trust's Early Career Fellowship programme (LECF) is a prestigious national competition for early career researchers, normally no more than 4 years after submitting their doctoral dissertation. Up until this year, the Trust’s Early Career Fellowship scheme has provided 50% of the salary costs of a three-year postdoctoral appointment, with the host institution providing the remaining funds.  

New for 2026

As part of the Trust’s centenary year celebrations, the Leverhulme Trust are pleased to announce that from 2026, the scheme will see a reduction in the contribution required by the universities it works with. The Leverhulme Trust will fully fund the first year of all fellowships, and provide match funding in years two and three. The additional boost will bring the total funding for the scheme to £18.85 million in 2026, up from £15.5 million in 2025.

The Fellow's host institution has to find matching funds for Years 2 and 3 of the Fellowship (and any salary costs which exceed £56k pa) and provide a letter guaranteeing salary costs not covered by the Leverhulme Trust as a requirement for entry to the national competition.

The Isaac Newton Trust undertakes to match the salary costs for any full- or part-time candidate successful in the national competition up to £28k pa for Years 2 and 3 of the Fellowship. In order to identify which candidates can be supported with offers of matched funding, an internal competition is held. INT typically makes about 40 offers of support in the event of success nationally.

Cambridge applicants have an exceptional record of securing LECFs. 15 awards were made in the previous round (2025) to candidates wishing to carry out research in Cambridge.

Number of LECFs supported by INT since 2008