Personal Research Fellowships

RSE Personal Research Fellowships allow eligible applicants to focus on a research project of their choice for up to twelve months.

The award provides funding for the appointment of a temporary replacement to enable the awardee to take research leave, either in their own institution or elsewhere, whilst remaining in continuous employment with their present employer. In addition to funding the salary for the replacement member of staff (including on-costs), this grant also covers research costs for the awardee.

For the autumn 2026 call, we are pleased to introduce a joint-funded Personal Research Fellowship with Environmental Standards Scotland (ESS). This ESS-RSE Personal Research Fellowship invites applications under the theme: Scotland’s Biodiversity Pathways. More details on this theme and eligibility are available below. 

ESS-RSE Personal Research Fellowship

 

Environmental Standards Scotland (ESS) is an independent non-ministerial office, accountable to the Scottish Parliament. ESS’s role is to monitor, investigate and secure public authorities’ compliance with environmental law in Scotland. ESS also scrutinises the effectiveness of environmental law and policy in Scotland, and how they are implemented and applied. Under the Natural Environment (Scotland) Act 2026, ESS has been established as the Independent Review Body with responsibility for scrutinising the Scottish Government’s delivery against the new statutory biodiversity and nature restoration targets, which will be set under the act.

ESS-RSE Personal Research Fellowship Theme: Scotland’s Biodiversity Pathways

The Natural Environment (Scotland) Act 2026 establishes a new framework of targets and duties intended to support biodiversity recovery in Scotland. Delivering these ambitions will require an understanding of how different policies, governance arrangements, management approaches, and interventions may contribute to statutory biodiversity outcomes.

Applications are invited for an ESS-RSE Personal Research Fellowship under the theme Scotland’s Biodiversity Pathways. Research may be undertaken in any discipline but should contribute to understanding how progress towards Scotland’s biodiversity targets can be assessed, the causal pathways through which policy and governance interventions may influence biodiversity outcomes, and the extent to which such interventions are likely to deliver their intended effects.

Proposals are expected to:

• Draw on robust empirical evidence, including long-term datasets where available.
• Develop transferable methods, frameworks, or tools that can be applied across taxa, ecosystems, or governance scales.
• Engage policy, practitioner, and/or community stakeholders to ensure relevance.

Research may develop or apply approaches such as modelling, forecasting, systems analysis, evaluation frameworks, decision-support tools, or other innovative methods that can inform biodiversity policy and practice. Proposals should demonstrate clear relevance to Scotland’s biodiversity ambitions and have the potential to generate insights that are useful to Environmental Standards Scotland, policymakers, practitioners and wider stakeholders.

Eligibility for both ESS-RSE and RSE Personal Research Fellowships:

Applicant eligibility

• Applicants must be existing members of academic staff on open-ended or continuing contracts in a higher education institution (HEI), further education institute (FEI), research institution (RI), or cultural institution (CI) with main offices and facilities in Scotland.
• Applicants on short or fixed-term contracts should ensure their contracts extend for at least three months after the end of the proposed project. Early Career Researchers on staged contracts to permanent lectureship positions are eligible for RSE Personal Research Fellowships, but must be in contract for the duration of the award.
• Awardees must not hold other paid appointments without the express permission of the RSE.
• Upon appointment, awardees will be required to devote themselves 100% of their contracted hours to the research project specified in the application form. Allowance will be made for graduate supervision (master’s and PhD) and, exceptionally, other limited amounts of research-related administration.
• A new application will not be considered when a report on a previous RSE award is overdue.
• RSE Personal Research Fellowships are open to early and mid-career researchers.
• Early career researcher (ECR) definition: ECR applicants must be within seven years of the award of their PhD (from the point of successful PhD viva to the point of applying) and be within seven years of their first academic appointment (paid contract of employment which lists research or teaching as the primary role). Additionally:
  
  • Maternity/paternity/parental/adoption leave after the award of a PhD of up to 18 months per child is taken into consideration. Please include the time you were away from work on maternity/paternity/adoption leave in the section ‘career history’;
  • Periods of leave for other reasons, such as long-term medical absence, responsibilities, the COVID-19 pandemic, etc., will also be taken into consideration.
• Mid-career academics definition:  academics who are normally within no more than 15 years from the award of their doctorate. This does not include breaks in career. This terminology does not account for an applicant’s age or current status when determining eligibility for this award.

Research eligibility

• Applicants are required to pursue their research in a HEI, FEI, RI or CI in Scotland; only these are acceptable as host institutions. This may be different to their current place of employment.
• The research can be in any academic discipline.

Application process

This award is open from noon on 2 September to noon on 21 October 2026.

Please follow these steps to apply:

1. Create a profile or log in here.
2. Once in your profile, access and complete either the RSE Personal Research Fellowship online application or the ESS-RSE Personal Research Fellowship online application. Access to the application forms will only be available if you are logged in. Google Chrome is the recommended browser.

Resources for applicants

RSE Personal Research Fellowships terms and conditions

ESS-RSE Personal Research Fellowships terms and conditions

RSE Research Awards general terms and conditions

RSE referee form

What makes a good RSE application?

Contact us

For more information regarding the award, please contact the Research Awards team at Awards@theRSE.org.uk.