The first round of recruitment for Newcastle University’s new Academic Track scheme opens on Monday 14^th January 2019, just the other side of the weekend. A replacement – or more accurately an extension and rebrand – of the NURF scheme, NUAcT is part of the overhaul in the university’s research strategy and seeks to “bridge the R&D skills gap” and grow researcher power in Newcastle by 20% over the next ten years.

On Thursday 10^th, Prof. Brian Walker (PVC for Research, Strategy and Resources) led an informative meeting with a booming attendance down in the Herschel Building to lay out the plans and answer – quite clearly and reassuringly, at times – questions about the scheme’s detail. Essentially five-year internally-funded research fellowships, the NUAcTs are poised as an early career career-development-type award with a focus on research, mentorship and that all important “transition to independence”.

Most of what was said at Prof. Walker’s open forum can be found in the proposal which is, unfortunately, no longer available. However, the NUAcT website covers much of the same information. Over five years, 100 ‘fellows’ will be supported across the whole university, increasing the principal investigator complement by 8%. Unlike other universities, these fellowships will recruit up to twice-yearly over the five year period (much like the UKRI Future Leader Fellowships) and make NUAcTs “part of the brickwork” of Newcastle, but the expectation is that recruitment won’t be spread evenly over five years but be front-heavy, with half appointed in the first two years.

As with the NURFs, the key focus of the NUAcT fellowships are to support research to improve the competitiveness of excellent candidates for external fellowship awards; that said, the default position of a NUAcT is progression to an open-ended faculty post – provided the formal review at 3-4 years goes to plan. Therefore the NUAcT is looked at least as a singular stream and more of a brand: “The NUAcT ‘umbrella’ will encompass current NURFs and also those holding equivalent externally funded fixed term fellowships as well as a newly appointed cohort of NUAcT Fellows.” Similarly, allocation is described in three strands: the open ‘big splash’ recruitment, targeted recruitment to NUCoREs, and equivalent entry for UKRI fellows.

Prof. Walker was keen to stress the flexibility of the scheme throughout the forum. NUPAcTs, the Partnership Academic Track scheme, clearly encourages industrial or commercial collaboration; EDI is set to play a key role to widen participation and plug the leaky pipeline. The support was a clear take-home message: not just start up money (£50k for lab-based, £20k if non-lab based) and a PhD student for a leg-up on the research front but also mentorship and development support, with a line manager and peer programmes to make “rounded academics”. Though teaching is not the focus of the fellowships, it’s clear teaching and engagement are to be core parts of that career development depending on the individual fellow’s prior experience and faculty-level teaching needs.

So what about recruitment? The original introduction of the NUAcT scheme concept in 2018 came with an air of “external applicants only” and so Prof. Walker was keen to stress that this was certainly not the case: there will be no preference or advantage to either internal or external candidates, with no letters of support or advanced negotiation required prior to application. The application process is less “grant application” by the sounds of it too, with no costings required up-front. We’ll know more on Monday when the application form goes live.

Appointment factors were also touched on by Prof. Walker. As is the trend with all career development fellowships nowdays, there are no limits on time-served and instead it’s the usual ‘track record for career stage’. Of course, alignment to Newcastle’s research strategy and vision will be the most paramount criteria, and a need for “breaking down the -ologies” was stressed; multi-disciplinary will be the key-word, as will an air of independent thinking – “potential for successful transition” is the phrase used, as well as “potential to be a strong role model for EDI”. Progression centres primarily on the fulfilment of these criteria after 3-4 years, with career breaks and such taken into account at all points. While Prof. Walker insisted that the NUAcTs will sit alongside normal advertisement and recruitment of lecturers, it is known that FMS no longer actively recruit lecturers, in favour of the NURFs. The expectation is that the overall lecturer (plus NUAcT post-progressors) pool will increase within all three faculties, indeed nearly doubling in FMS by 2028.

Prof. Walker also set out the governance of the scheme – Prof. Candy Rowe has been appointed as Director of NUAcT and Prof. Walker will be Chair of the Board – and overall is pretty detailed and optimistic. The value-added information from the open forum hosted on Thursday 10^th was primarily in the encouraging tone and some stiff-upper-lip on the impact of Brexit (to paraphrase Prof. Walker, “we just have to crack on”). With the first round of applications and appointments due in the next few months, the proof will be in the pudding. Any questions in the meantime can be addressed to the NUAcT admin team – contact details on the website.

 

Note: this blog was edited on Friday 11th Jan 2019 to reflect the proposal document no longer being available online.

When making decisions about the future if your academic career you may feel that you are at the beginning a complex set of crossroads which can be quite confusing and at times frustrating. As there is no defined route when it comes to career progression it can be difficult to decide which direction is the right one to take, and when is the right time to make the correct next step to advance your career. Obtaining independent funding such as a fellowship is one option that can demonstrate your potential to be a future leader in your chosen research field. However, for early career researchers these opportunities can be highly competitive as successful candidates are required to demonstrate their ability to produce meaningful research, manage multiple projects (and potentially students) and communicate their work to a wider audience. Not everyone has the same experience when applying for a fellowship, but we asked Dr Kirsty E. McAleese (Institute of Neuroscience, and a recently appointed Alzheimer’s Society research fellow) to describe her motivation, experience, and give her top tips when applying for a research fellowship.

Why a fellowship?

I had a clear career aim of staying in research and continuing and expanding my work in a niche area of dementia research. A fellowship is the first step to independent research and developing and leading my own research group.

How did you decide which schemes to apply for?

I chose to apply for a dementia charity funded fellowships as these are very keen on retaining young researchers already in the field and tend to be slightly less competitive than other general funding bodies such as the Wellcome Trust and the MRC. Networking with funding bodies/charities can be very important in this aspect; I was previously funded by and won an award with the Alzheimer’s Society so I was on their radar and they knew my name, so use anything like this to your advantage.

Where to start…

My mentor told me that I must tick three boxes: 1) my development as a scientist, 2) the idea, and 3) the institute you choose to work at. Being enthusiastic and passionate about your research is one aspect; but a fellowship is also about your development into an independent researcher and learning new skills. I have worked in neuropathology for many years and part of my fellowship is branching into in vitro models. Making sure you have the right team supporting you and the facilities to successfully complete your project is key. I did not move to a different University to achieve this; sometimes it is required but not always necessary as long as you can justify why you want to stay at a particular institute and have an external collaboration in place, you can still demonstrate your aim to develop as a scientist.

How long the application took…

Writing the application took a solid three months but I had recently published a paper in the field and, therefore, already had a good understanding of the relative literature. I would suggest at least 6-7 months from start to finish: it seems like a long time but it will go very quickly, and you need to have it read over numerous times before submission (I submitted draft 8!). Also, don’t forget the application must go through the University’s grant application and peer review system, which requires a few months notice at least, and final submission confirmation is done by the University, so always submit to the funder a few days early.

What were the most difficult parts? 

I found the time scale of an application challenging. You have to plan ahead 18 months for any eventuality, i.e., success, organising bridge funding if staying at the same institution, or unemployment! The application itself takes around 6 months and then an additional 6-7 months for review, and hopefully an interview (where you will sometimes only get 2 weeks notice!), before you know if you have been successful. Then there is the processing of the paper work and generating a start date, which took 4 months.

Top tips

1) Do your research on the funding bodies as they are all slightly different. Most have application help or webinars available.

2) Ask as many people as possible from different disciplines to read it! It is likely a non-expert will review your application so it must be very clear and not too complex.

3) Remember to tailor the application to ‘I’ and not ‘we’. It felt very uncomfortable doing so but it is the only time you will do this. Remember a fellowship is about you and you only. Sell yourself!

4) Always have contingency plans embedded into your project design in case experiments fail (especially if techniques are novel): what would you do to still guarantee success of the project? This was a question brought up in a mock interview and it was asked at my real interview!

 

For guidance and advice on fellowship applications to external funders, and who to contact if you are thinking of applying see the following links: –

https://newcastle.sharepoint.com/hub/medical/Pages/fellowships.aspx

https://microsites.ncl.ac.uk/njro/researchers/research-idea/funding-opportunities/finding-funding-contacts/

The MRC has developed an interactive career framework that provides information on research career pathways and funding streams available for early career researchers who want to establish an independent research career.

https://www.mrc.ac.uk/skills-careers/interactive-career-framework/