Early Career Fellowships in Cultural and Heritage Institutions

Early Career Fellowships in Cultural and Heritage Institutions

Supports early-career researchers in United Kingdom heritage institutions through fellowships embedded in museum and archive settings.

⚠ This may reflect a past cycle — verify the current call on the funder's site.

The AHRC Early Career Fellowships in Cultural and Heritage Institutions 2025 programme embeds early-career researchers within UK galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (GLAM sector) to undertake co-designed research projects of 1–2 years in duration. The scheme is coordinated by the V&A Museum on behalf of AHRC's Early Career Research Fellowships initiative and represents a structured partnership between universities, research organisations, and independent research organisations (IROs) operating in the heritage sector.

The total fund for this cohort is £2,500,000, with a maximum award of £312,500 per fellowship at 80% full economic cost funded by AHRC and 20% covered by the host IRO. Fellows must hold a doctorate or equivalent level of experience and can work full-time or part-time (with pro-rata duration extension permitted). Projects were required to commence by 1 January 2027. The call was invite-only: only researchers who successfully passed an expression of interest stage were eligible to submit a full application, and the application window ran from 16 February to 11 June 2026.

Eligible host institutions are IROs in the GLAM sector with established research capacity and active collections. Research topics include archaeology, history, creative arts and design, heritage science, digital technologies applied to collections, climate resilience for heritage assets, and contemporary curatorial practice. The co-designed nature of fellowships means proposals must demonstrate genuine alignment with an IRO's research priorities and collections. For-profit organisations are ineligible as host institutions. The 2025 cohort has now closed; a next annual cohort is expected for the 2026–2027 cycle.