Applications Invited for STFC Leadership Fellowships in Public Engagement
The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) runs the Leadership Fellowships in Public Engagement scheme to support the very best scientists, engineers and technical staff in STFC’s community to undertake extended programmes of high-quality, innovative public engagement.
Through the initiative, STFC wishes to encourage and support leadership and capacity building for public engagement activities carried out by highly skilled practitioners of public engagement with STFC science, technology and facilities. The goal is to demonstrate the excitement of research and the value of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) to the UK. Fellows are required to:
Act as academic leaders for engagement within their organisation.
Build strengthened capacity and networks for public engagement activities within their organisation.
Raise the profile of public engagement within their host institution and professional community, including sharing best practice and developing new talent.
Deliver a prolonged, thematic and appropriate programme of high-quality public engagement, covering multiple different events and activities during the lifetime of the fellowship.
Promote and champion STFC science, technology and facilities, including the impact of science and technology on society.
Regularly interact with STFC’s public engagement and communication teams, including STFC networks, events, grant holder meetings and advisory structures, when requested.
Fellows must devote a minimum of 25% of their fellowship time to activities relating to public engagement leadership and capacity building. Proposed engagement programmes must clearly focus around the remit of the STFC science and technology programme (ie astronomy, solar and planetary science, particle physics, particle astrophysics, cosmology, nuclear physics and accelerator science) or clearly and demonstrably align to the science and technology work of STFC’s national and international laboratories and facilities (eg CERN, Boulby Underground Laboratory and the UK Astronomy Technology Centre).
Applicants may be at any career stage and must demonstrate a strong track record of leadership and public engagement within their field in an STFC-funded area of science and technology or in an area that has been clearly underpinned by the use of STFC’s national or international laboratories and facilities. The track record must be appropriate to the applicant’s career stage.
Applicants must have a demonstrable record of success in planning, delivering and evaluating public engagement activities to a wide range of audiences.
Fellowships may be held at any eligible UK research organisation (including STFC’s own national laboratories). At the time of application, applicants must have a contract of employment at the UK research organisation that wholly covers the duration of the fellowship. Fellows must be in the employment of their host research organisation when the fellowship commences.
The maximum value that may be sought is £200,000. As the scheme comes under the full economic costs (fEC) framework, the maximum payable by STFC is £160,000. The time commitment and duration of a fellowship is flexible; a typical fellowship is for between 20% and 40% of a fellow’s time for a period of up to three years.
Applications must be submitted by the deadline of 1 October 2020 (16:00).
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