Frequently Asked Questions

Daphne Jackson Fellowships cover your salary and extraordinary expenses. Extraordinary expenses are specifically for retraining costs – these currently stand at £1500 per year and cover attendance and travel to Daphne Jackson training courses, conference registration and travel, learned society memberships, and other training courses.

Other costs – bench fees, consumables, other research costs (e.g. costs of using facilities, equipment purchase, equipment hire, maintenance, computing hardware and software) – must be met by your host organisation. These costs vary widely depending on your project but should be considered and agreed in principle during the application process.

Occasionally, some Funded Fellowships may provide money towards consumables.

Our fellowships are funded by external organisations such as UKRI, universities, medical research charities and learned societies – please visit ‘Funding’ for more information. We don’t provide funding ourselves but we do act as a facilitator between you and the funder.  Fellows are not expected to find their own funding.

The fellowships are usually two or three years (depending on the funding arrangement) at 0.5 FTE (full-time equivalent). How you work your FTE is entirely between yourself and your supervisor, and we encourage you to be creative to fit around your other commitments and the nature of the project. For example, and if relevant, some fellows like to work more hours in school term time and fewer in the school holidays.

Our fellowships are funded by external organisations such as UKRI, universities, medical research charities and learned societies. The length of the fellowship is determined by the level of funding available for the project.

To be eligible for a fellowship, a break from research of two years or more is required. The career break must have started for a family, caring or health reason. Non-research work taken on since you left research can be considered part of your career break depending on circumstances. Please contact us if you are unsure

No, we will consider any length of career break over two years as long as your break was due to family, caring or health reasons.

For research fellowships, you must have a first degree and a PhD, or at least three years equivalent research experience (academic or industrial) with evidence of research impact and outcomes.

Qualification and experience requirements vary for Research Technical Professional Fellowships.

Our fellowships are not suitable for clinicians looking to restart their research careers. There are other sources of funding for this through the NIHR.

Your career break must have been for family, caring or health reasons.

For research fellowships, you must have a first degree (and ideally a PhD) in a research discipline, preferably related to the area of the proposed fellowship. Alternately, you may have at least three years equivalent research experience (academic or industrial) with evidence of research impacts and outcomes. Incomplete PhD studies do not contribute to three years of equivalent research experience, but please contact us if you are unsure.

For Research Technical Professional Fellowships, qualifications vary between opportunities but usually a PhD is not required.

If you have retrained and worked as a schoolteacher during your career break you are still eligible for one of our fellowships, but you must have a first degree and ideally a PhD, or at least three years equivalent research experience (academic or industrial) with evidence of research outputs prior to your break from research.

If you did any paid research during your career break, unfortunately you will not be eligible for one of our fellowships.

If you did research on a voluntary basis, it may affect your eligibility. We would encourage a small amount of voluntary work (around 2 – 4 weeks) for you to see for yourself whether you want to commit to returning to research. If you work voluntarily as a researcher for longer periods of time, you may have done a large amount of retraining already, which would mean that you are not eligible for a Fellowship as retraining is a core element of our scheme. Please contact us if you are unsure.

No, you don’t have to stay in the UK, but our fellowships are for those who are resident in the UK and ideally intend to remain so after the fellowship.

To maximise your chances of obtaining a fellowship, you must be able to speak and write English fluently. If your English isn’t fluent, we would encourage you to take lessons to improve your language skills.

No, our fellowships are for anyone wanting to return to research.

Each host organisation has a different pay scale, and you will be paid on a scale in relation to other researchers in the department or organisation.

Fellows typically work 0.5 FTE. Your working pattern should be decided between you and your supervisor. You can be flexible according to the demands of the project and the working pattern that suits you and your supervisor.

Yes, attendance at conferences is encouraged during your fellowship. Conference participation often leads to contacts that help in securing a position afterwards. Many fellows use their extraordinary expenses to cover the cost of conference attendance.

During their fellowship, all of our fellows are required to take part in three tailor-made courses organised by the Trust. These courses cover key skills that you will need in order to return to your career. Courses are also a great opportunity to meet and network with other fellows. You may also need to attend other training courses, and these are usually provided by the host.

Each fellow is given £1500 extraordinary expenses per year to pay for the costs associated with attending conferences or training courses. Costs could include conference registration, learned society membership or travel costs to training courses.

The application process takes approximately a year, from the date you submit your forms to us to the start of a fellowship. Please see our application process for further details.

Yes, there is an element of competition. For Funded Fellowships, the funder selects which candidate(s) goes through the application process. Therefore you will be in competition with other applicants. For Regular Fellowships, the Trust approaches potential funders that are relevant to the project. There will be competition with other projects the funder is also considering.

Yes! Our goal is for you to return to your career, and if you don’t need one of our fellowships to do that, that’s great! However, please keep us informed of other avenues you might be pursuing as it means we might be able to help others.   

No, this is not within our remit.

We appreciate that it is quite common for the partner of a Daphne Jackson Fellow to have an established career in a research field similar to that of a Daphne Jackson Fellowship. Despite this, our position is that it’s not appropriate for your partner to be your supervisor due to potential conflicts of interest, even if you have worked together before. This is in line with the policy of many UK universities and research institutes.

No, unfortunately you are not eligible. This would be deemed a successful follow-on position after a fellowship.

No, the Awards Assessment Panel’s decision is final, and we do not have an appeals process.

If you have been on maternity leave, it can count towards your career break. However, to be eligible for a fellowship your break must still be for two years or more. If you had extended maternity leave for extenuating circumstances, then do apply and send your forms to us for further review.