Fellowships in the Department of Psychology

We offer an outstanding environment for fellows to carry out their independent research. Our department has specialised laboratories for research on sleep, vision, speech and hearing, memory, language processing, child development and experimental social psychology, with state-of-the-art behavioural and electrophysiological equipment. We have our own Neuroimaging Centre, providing access to fMRI, EEG, MEG and TMS, and a Centre for Child Development and Family Research. We are active members of the Institute for Mental Health Research at York and York Biomedical Research Institute, providing a rich landscape for interdisciplinary collaboration and training.

Psychology at York was ranked 8th in the UK as part of REF2021. We are committed to ensuring that all members of staff achieve their full potential in a supportive and responsive work environment. In 2019, we received the Gold Athena SWAN Award, in recognition of our strong commitment to supporting women in science.

Most fellowship schemes require an applicant mentor or sponsor, who is usually a member of faculty within your host department. If you are interested in applying for a postdoctoral fellowship, you should first identify a prospective mentor/sponsor from our academic staff and email them directly to discuss your proposed research ideas. We welcome expressions of interest at any time, but please read the information below before getting in touch.

Before you apply

Fellowship applications take time to develop, so contact us as early as possible so that we can provide the best level of support. For most schemes, we ask that applicants contact us a minimum of 3 months before the application deadline - but it’s never too early to get in touch.

Prior to submitting your application, we offer:

• Mentoring from relevant staff members
• Administrative support with your proposal, including resource planning and costing
• Arranging contact with specialists in intellectual property, etc.
• Peer review of your application
• Practice sessions for interview preparation

If your application is successful

Fellows within the Department of Psychology can also expect support throughout their Fellowship:

• Continued mentoring from senior colleagues
• Access to world-class research facilities
• Career development support, including both training and teaching opportunities
• Support with future grant proposals

Additional support offered at York

The University of York is committed to promoting and encouraging Fellowships across all Departments and Faculties. In 2019, the University set up the York Fellowship Programme (YFP), which offers additional support, guidance, and funding, particularly for early career Fellows. YFP provides social events, training, and professional development opportunities, including our annual Fellowship Fortnight.

The YFP can provide you with additional support, including:

• Regular social events, to meet other Fellows
• Training and professional development opportunities, facilitated by both internal and external trainers
• Additional funding, through our match fund request scheme (which allows Departments and the University to share additional costs not covered by funders).

If you have any questions about the YFP, please contact the University’s Fellowship Coordinator (fellowships@york.ac.uk).

There are many fellowships available, each with their own eligibility criteria and application process. Please note that the deadlines for these schemes vary, and you will need to contact the Department well in advance of these deadlines (this must be at least 3 months before any final deadline).

Externally-funded Fellowship opportunities

The following schemes are popular with prospective applicants in our department, but we strongly advise you to double check each scheme’s eligibility criteria to ensure that you are a good fit.

For early career researchers

• Wellcome Early Career Award
• British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship
• ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship
• Royal Society University Research Fellowship
• Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship

For intermediate and senior researchers

• MRC Career Development Award
• Wellcome Career Development Award
• UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship

For international researchers

• British Academy International Fellowship
• Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship

For those who wish to return to research

• Daphne Jackson Trust Fellowship

You can also click here to see a broader list of common fellowships. Please note that this is not an exhaustive list as some funders offer fellowship calls that are tailored to specific objectives.

If you are interested in applying for an independent research Fellowship at York, we encourage you to contact a member of our academic staff whose research interests most closely match yours, to ask whether they would be willing to act as a mentor/sponsor. When contacting staff, it is important to include:

• A copy of your academic CV, including a full list of publications
• A brief outline of your proposed research and training programme, maximum 1 page of A4
• Details of the fellowship you would like to apply for, and a short explanation of why you consider it to be a good fit for your research and training goals.
• A short statement outlining why you would like to carry out your research at York

We evaluate each expression of interest on the basis of:

• Academic merit
• Alignment of the proposed research with our research strengths
• Eligibility of the candidate for the proposed funding scheme

Alternatively, if you would like further information on fellowships in our department, you can contact our Fellowship Lead: Dr Scott Cairney (scott.cairney@york.ac.uk).

Current Fellow: Lidón Marin-Marin

Lidón Marin-Marin is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow, funded by UKRI under Horizon Europe guarantee funding. Her research focuses on modality differences in semantic processing and how they relate to graded patterns of brain connectivity (MODSEM). Lidón came to York, having previously worked at Universitat Jaume I, Spain.

I applied to York because I was very interested in working with my current supervisor, Beth Jefferies. Her influential work on the neural basis of semantic processing is very well-known in the field. The writing of the application was actually engaging and less complicated than I expected it to be, because I had the support of my supervisor and other colleagues that peer reviewed my project proposal. Moreover, the guidelines in the application's website were very clear, which was really helpful. Everyone at the University of York is so welcoming that I felt comfortable from the very beginning - my co-workers became my friends very fast. I also love that York is such a historical and cultural city. I feel very lucky to work here.

Current Fellow: Sophie Meekings

Sophie Meekings is a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Research Fellow. Her project, Talking Humans in a Social World, focuses on the social side of the human voice: how our behaviour and brain signals change when we speak to another person, and whether this is different for people with a speech disability. Sophie came to York, having previously been a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at Newcastle University.

My initial impression of York was of a thriving, fast-paced and collaborative research environment balanced with a healthy respect for work/life boundaries. I saw this as a great fit for the fellowship I was applying for, which is for scientists who have an ambitious programme of research but may need flexible working arrangements because of their personal circumstances (I currently work part-time to accommodate chronic illness). I also saw that there were several people at York doing research in the same broad area, but no-one exactly like me- so there was a niche I could fill. This was important because York initially didn't have some of the equipment I needed, so the fellowship panel wanted to know why I hadn't applied somewhere that did. I was able to argue that York was the best place for me to establish myself as an independent research leader.

Before I applied I had no experience of working or studying at York, and I wasn't able to visit during the application process due to the pandemic, so it was a bit of a leap of faith to decide to apply for my fellowship somewhere completely new. It also felt a bit cheeky asking relative strangers to help me put together an application that statistically had a very low chance of being successful (about 5%!). But I felt supported by the department from the very beginning of my application- people I had never met offered me constructive feedback, an audience for practice presentations, and vital support navigating the finance and admin side of the application. I was right to tell the fellowship panel that York was the best place for me: I now have a brilliant team of colleagues, am really well supported by my manager, and the University has continued to invest in me. I got a capital grant and a departmental contribution towards the equipment I needed, and together with two colleagues from Linguistics I was recently awarded nearly £300k from the University Sparks fund to run YorVoice, a project which aims to create a new interdisciplinary community of voice researchers at York... continuing to carve out my niche!