Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship
What is the Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship?
Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowships are 8-year fellowships aimed to support talented postdoctoral scientists (scientists at an early stage of their career) with a need for flexibility due to caring responsibilities or personal health reasons to build an independent research career at a UK institution. For more details see Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship Summary 2025![](/doc/cms_library/143.gif" alt=)
Who can apply for the Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship?
Postdocs of any nationality with no more than 6 years of actual research experience post Ph.D. by the application deadline, who can demonstrate a need for flexible support due to personal circumstances which is either current and will be current and ongoing by the start of the Fellowship and throughout its duration. Both men and women can apply and have received the fellowship in the past.
Why apply for the Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship?
- It is an opportunity to establish your independent line of research at a UK institution
- It provides you with the ability to have flexible working arrangements (e.g. if you are a parent of young children, children with a disability or have health problems yourself)
- Both men and women are eligible to apply and have received fellowships in the past
- Depending on the level of experience, successful applicants are expected to be strong candidates for permanent posts in institutions at the end of their Fellowships
- You can request up to £1.87M of funding over the 8 years
- You can receive funding for your salary and associated on-costs as set by the host organisation (the Royal Society will cover 80% of this)
- You can receive directly allocated (including estate costs) and indirect costs (80% contribution)
- You can receive funding for 80% of the costs of a postdoctoral research assistant
- You can receive funding for the costs of a 4-year PhD studentship
- You can receive 100% of research expenses, including consumables, equipment, travel, etc.
- You can receive up to £8,000 per year to support public engagement activities
- You can receive up to £8,000 over the entire duration of the fellowship to support training (technical and non-technical) for self and team
When to apply for the Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship?
The application round for grants starting in 2025 will close on Tue 29 Oct 2023 15:00 GMT.
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Please inform the Project Office about your intention.
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How to apply for the Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship?
- Find and read programme guidelines:
- Contact a UK university or research institute (your UK host organisation) and negotiate a space where you could take your project. Contact the Head of Department and agree with him/her that he/she will support your application (they must confirm that you will be provided with space and resources to carry out the research project as planned). Identify a Research Support contact, who will be able to to review and amend the application prior to submission.
- Contact two referees who will be able to write you a supporting statement. They will need to be invited as contributors to your application through the participants tab of the Flexi-Grant system. At least one should be someone who has worked closely with you, the other must be external to your current research group. You should not choose both referees from your proposed host organisation, and if possible, one should be an international referee. Your named Head of Department cannot be a referee.
- Establish a login to the Royal Society’s Grants management system (Flexi-Grant®) and register for an ORCID ID.
- Prepare the content for your application as outlined below.
- Complete your online application form in the Flexi-Grant® system. The application form includes:
- Summary Page: here you will find instructions for submission of your application for approval from the UK Host Organisation (approval can only occur only once all other parts are complete) and you can invite participants (e.g. Head of Department and two Nominated Referees) to contribute to the application.
- Eligibility criteria: confirm that you meet the eligibility criteria.
- Need for flexibility (200 words, this section will be read by the RS Grants team only, the panel will be judging your application solely based on scientific merit):
- Current need for flexibility: details of your current need for flexible support due to personal circumstances at the time of application.
- How you plan to use the flexibility offered through the DHF: provide details of how you intend to use the flexibility offered by the Fellowship.
- Applicant personal details: title, names, address, organisation, country, e-mail address (this must be the one used to register a user account on FlexiGrant). Also amend which type of contact your application participants are (e.g. Head of Department, collaborator).
- Applicant career summary:
- Full name
- Title of current position
- Current employer (official name)
- Current department
- Country/territory where your current employer is based (or last employer if on leave or unemployed)
- Current position start date
- Current position end date (enter when expected to finish)
- Field of specialisation (max 20 words)
- Summary of your current research (include brief note on strength of your organisation) (max 200 words)
- Ph.D. award date (date when you received formal notification of your Ph.D. thesis being accepted in its final form)
- Ph.D. institution
- Ph.D. country/territory
- Personal statement (research career to date, incl. research/related contributions, prizes and achievements and your career aspirations long term; how Fellowship will benefit you at this stage, how you intend to build independent research career and how Fellowship will help you reach this goal; can provide details of additional activities such as conferences, patents, workshops, public engagement, etc. ) (max 500 words)
- Applicant career history (full list of appointments since Ph.D. in reverse chronological order, stating if part-time; dates in DD/MM/YYYY format; list periods of part-time working, career breaks, extended sick leave, maternity/paternity/adoptive leave as eligibility may depend on the accuracy of this information; depth of information you provide is up to you, but this will represent you under assessment and so it is worth including as much good evidence for your academic merit as possible)
- Impact of covid19 (max 500 words)
- Applicant qualifications (listed in reverse chronological order)
- List of key and/or relevant publications (authors, titles and references of up to 20 best publications, marking with asterisk (*) the ones you consider most significant; place in two lists – a) refereed and published in primary journals, b) contributions to symposia and compiled volumes; for publications in large collaborative programmes, state your contribution; relevant pre-prints can be included but must be marked as such) (max 1000 words)
- Applicant research funding (reverse chronological order, type of award, value and title of award; confirm if would continue if secure Fellowship; note any pending parallel Fellowship applications and when expect a decision)
- Research proposal:
- Proposed starting date (projects are expected to start between 1 Oct 2024 and 1 January 2025)
- End date (must be exactly 8 years after the start date)
- Project title
- Keywords (5-10)
- Subject group
- Subject area
- Abstract (scientific summary of your project) (max 400 words)
- Lay summary (reason for choosing this field and why is it particularly exciting/interesting/important, potential benefit to wider society; this section is important to Panel members who work in a broad range of fields) (max 250 words)
- Research proposal (detailed five-year project plan alongside a broader eight-year vision and strategy: nature of proposed research, aims, brief plan of the investigation, description of experimental methods and techniques, indication of milestones and time-scales; avoid illustrations with fine detail and in colour) (max 2000 words or 4 sides of A4 with font size no smaller than Arial 10 if using PDF upload)
- Named collaborators
- Host organisation
- Host department
- Justification for choice of host organisation)
- Data management and data sharing:
- Outline of data management and data sharing plan (max 200 words)
- Overseas field research (details of any proposed fieldwork outside UK: location, duration and justification)
- Overseas field research upload (permissions and collections of specimens)
- Use of animal research: Does your proposal involve the use of animals or animal tissues? If yes, you will need to answer further questions.
- Use of human participants and tissue: Does your proposal involve the use of human participants, patients or tissue? If yes, provide a certificate or letter to show that ethical permission has been or will be obtained
- Financial details: provide details of the funding required for each year of the research fellowship under the relevant headings.
- Budget table (maximum value of the award is £1.87M over the 8 years. Within this maximum value, a reasonable level of inflation to all grant costings should be applied, except for Ph.D. studentships and fees)
- Justification for salary
- Justification for relocation and visa expenses
- Justification for research expenses
- Justification for inflation rate applied
- Justification for Ph.D. studentship
- Applicant declaration: declaration that Terms and Conditions of the award have been read and will be adhered to, that you have access to the necessary facilities to carry out your research and that Head of Department will provide you with sufficient time and resources to carry out the research
- Nominated reference support: the applicant needs to invite the referees under the participants tab (Summary page) to submit their references confidentially into the system.
- Head of Department support: the Head of Department must support your application after being invited through the participants tab. The Head of Department should detail your suitability for the department and also set out their intentions for your career progression at the host organisation.
- Diversity monitoring: for internal purposes of the Royal Society, seen only by the applicant.
- Ensure that UK Host Organisation Approver approves the application. Submit your application (only possible once approved) by Tue 29 Oct 2024 15:00 GMT.
If you are called for an interview (to be informed in May 2025), you can expect to be interviewed on 4-5 June 2025, and results will be announced in July 2025. Fellowships are expected to commence between 1 October 2025 and 1 January 2026.
Royal Society contact: The Royal Society, 6-9 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AG.
Before contacting us, please check whether your question is answered by the scheme guidelines.
If not, please e-mail the Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship Team: dhf@royalsociety.org, or call ☎: +4420 7451 2666.
