Interested in undertaking a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship at the Global Development Institute? Here’s what you need to know about the application process.

The Leverhulme Early Career Fellowships are available to academics with a research record but who have not yet held a full-time permanent academic post, to undertake a significant piece of publishable work.

The Global Development Institute is keen to support researchers who want to apply for the fellowship scheme. The scheme opens in January 2024, but researchers who are interested in applying are asked to identify a mentor and submit an internal expression of interest by 17 November 2023. This ensures support can be provided as part of the application process.

Proposed research projects must be distinguishable from the projects on which the candidate’s PhDs were based. Past successful applicants have already published work based on their PhD and offer genuinely original projects for the Leverhulme scheme.

Successful candidates will be notified in the week commencing 18 December 2023. Those who pass this internal review will then work with their academic mentor and the SEED Research Office to develop their application for the external deadline.

If you’re interested in applying for a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship, please check the eligibility for the scheme and identify and contact a potential mentor based within GDI.

• Further information on the Leverhulme Early Career Fellowships and eligibility criteria
• GDI researchers

Leverhulme Early Career Fellows at GDI

We are pleased to have had a number of Leverhulme Early Career Fellows at the Global Development Institute in previous years.

Dr Smith Ouma, has just begun his fellowship looking at Data Justice, land struggles and right to the city in the global North and South.

In Nairobi and Manchester, marginalised urban communities and social movements are challenging established asymmetries in land information by constructing their own registers of land ownership. These insurgent land registers are fundamentally political projects that seek to contest the commodification and financialisation of urban land. My comparative project will examine the methodologies employed by social movements in the two cities to document urban land ownership. In the process, it will reveal the commonalities, differences and interconnections that shape land struggles in the global North and South.

Findings from the project will also facilitate the development of frameworks that movements can employ in engaging with formal actors and contribute to scholarly literature in the field of data justice and the politics of urban land. Ultimately, the project will elevate the creative elements of marginalised urban dwellers’ local and transnational interactions and highlight how these incrementally aid in their construction of place.