Position: Post-doctoral Research Fellowship
Duration: four years (2021-2025)
Application deadline: 4 September 2020
Location: King’s College Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
Through a generous donation, King’s College Cambridge is able to invite applications for a four-year Research Fellowship from those who are completing or have recently completed a doctorate and who intend to pursue a research project on some aspect of the Silk Road countries, societies, and cultures of Asia from the Western borders of China to the Mediterranean Sea, as well as their relationships with China in the East and Europe in the West, since 1400CE. The research project’s discipline may be, but is not limited to, politics, geography, anthropology, comparative literature, social/political aspects of economics, history and archaeology.
This Research Fellowship is part of a broader programme of studies of the countries of the Silk Roads, which includes lectures, seminars and conferences, as well as graduate scholarships and further Research Fellowships. As well as pursuing their own research project, the successful candidate will be expected to play an active role in developing the programme and in organizing academic activity concerned with the countries of the Silk Road.
This post-doctoral Fellowship is intended to encourage research into the Silk Roads and the countries of the Silk Roads by enabling the successful candidate to complete a substantial research project on their own choosing. Projects may concern any aspect of the countries, societies, and cultures of the Silk Roads, from the Western borders of China to the Mediterranean Sea, and of the Silk Roads themselves, that is to studies of relationships and the movement of materials, knowledge, and technologies between China and the Mediterranean, at any period from 1400 CE to the present day.
The ideal candidate for this Research Fellowship will have a strong background in a relevant discipline and be completing or have completed an outstanding doctoral thesis. It is not a requirement that the candidate’s doctoral studies or the work that they submit in support of their application should have concerned questions of the Silk Roads specifically, but candidates will be expected to show in their applications both how their future work relates to the work that they have already done. The successful candidate will be expected to engage broadly with the whole college community.
The stipend attached to a Research Fellowship is £21,716 (pre award of doctorate), £24,129 (after award of doctorate), rising each year to a maximum of £27,949. Additional payment is made for teaching. A living-out allowance of £4,000 is made, on application, to those not living in college.
The closing date for applications, including references, is 9 am (UK local time) on Friday, 4th September 2020. Further information about the College may be obtained from the College website.
Eligibility
Graduates of any university are eligible. Candidates will usually have completed their PhD but must not have undertaken more than 3-years of postdoctoral work by 1st October 2021 (i.e. your PhD cannot have been granted before 30th September 2018).
Dates
The closing date for applications, including references, is 9 am (UK local time) on Friday 4th September 2020. Applications received after this date and time will not be considered. Long-listed candidates will be notified in early October and will be expected to provide within 5-days a writing sample of not more than 20,000 words. Short-listed candidates will be invited for interview on either Wednesday, 20th January 2021 or Thursday, 21st January 2021. Please ensure that you will be available for interview on these dates, as it is not possible to arrange other times for interviews. The Fellowship will begin on 1st October 2021 and will run until 30th September 2025.
Application
To apply candidates must use the following link to go to the FAS website and create an application. Before the closing date, applicants must complete all sections of the online Fellowship Application and upload onto the website (PDF only) the following:
- A curriculum vitae (of no more than three A4 sides) including details of higher education, degrees awarded, positions held and a list of publications.
- A document (of no more than 1200 words in length) containing descriptions of your current research and of the research you propose to undertake during the Fellowship.
Applicants must also arrange for three letters of recommendation to be uploaded onto the site in PDF format by the closing date of the competition, 9 am (UK local time) on Friday 4th September 2020. Each referee should be asked to provide the names of two further readers, not in the candidate’s institution, to whom work might be sent if the candidate is long-listed. It is the duty of the candidate to ensure that the referees submit the references and the names of two readers before the closing date.
Your referees will need to provide their references through the FAS website. They will be sent an email containing a link to do this. Referees unable to submit references electronically via the FAS website may e-mail sally.thorp@kings.cam.ac.uk the competition administrator. Please note that all application materials must be in the English language. In early October, the College will contact long-listed applicants by email to ask for samples of written work, up to 20,000 words (either published papers or chapters of a doctoral thesis). This work must be supplied within 5-days of the sending of the e-mail.
If you have any further questions regarding any aspect of the competition, please e-mail sally.thorp@kings.cam.ac.uk the competition administrator.
For more information please see the website here.
