Research Fellowship Schemes

 

The School of Archaeology welcomes interest from researchers wishing to apply to external funding bodies for Research Fellowships. 

Please see here the School's general guidance notes for applicants intending to apply to external funding bodies to develop their research projects here (please note that the School itself does not offer funded Fellowships). We expect that prospective candidates will have contacted a potential supervisor in the School well before the funder's deadline to discuss the proposed work and application. Queries should be directed either to research@arch.ox.ac.uk or to the proposed mentor/supervisor within the School.

Please note that the School requires initial Expressions of Interest by six weeks before the funder deadline, unless otherwise indicated for specific calls.

 

New calls:

 

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     Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowships 2025

 

Funder deadline: 20 February 2025

Call website: https://www.leverhulme.ac.uk/early-career-fellowships

The School of Archaeology welcomes Expressions of Interest for this round of the Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowships. Guidelines for submitting an Expression of Interest ('EoI') can be found here. The deadline for submitting EoIs is Wednesday 11 December 2024. For any queries relating to the funding scheme or the internal application process, please contact research@arch.ox.ac.uk.

 


In addition to externally funded research Fellowships, Junior Research Fellowships (JRFs) are also available at particular colleges within the University of Oxford; they are advertised via their websites. Some posts are advertised in the Appointments section of the Oxford Gazette and/or on the Conference of Colleges website.

 

           The School of Archaeology welcomes researchers from all backgrounds, and provides a vibrant environment in which to undertake postdoctoral research. The School has a track record of hosting successful Research Fellowships (please see the list of current and recent Fellows above), and provides an excellent range of facilities, including laboratories and research space. The School has close links with the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology and the Pitt Rivers Museum; and the University’s Bodleian Library resources are world-renowned.

 

School of Archaeology support and resources for Research Fellows

  • The provision of mentors or supervisors is an integral element of the Fellowship schemes, and these roles are fulfilled by academic staff within the School. Annual Career Development Reviews are offered to all fixed term researchers in the School. In addition, the Head of School holds an individual meeting with each Research Fellow each year to discuss project and career progress.
  •  The School has a broad range of laboratory facilities, most of which are based at the Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art (RLAHA), which can be utilised by Fellows (please note that this must be built into Fellowship applications through discussion with the relevant School staff). Facilities include stable isotope, radiocarbon, genetic, geochemical, and physical material analyses.
  •  The School’s Research Facilitator provides regular updates on grant application opportunities for all researchers, as well as one-to-one support in drawing together applications, and circulates information regarding upcoming training opportunities offered within the University. 
  •  The School hosts a wide range of seminar series, involving internal and external speakers. Information on their current programmes is available here
  • SPECTRA (Society for Postdoctoral and Early Career Teaching and Research Staff in Archaeology) is the official society of the postdoctoral researchers within the School. It exists to facilitate networking between its members, represent the postdoctoral community at appropriate School committees, and promote the professional development of early career researchers. The Society’s website is available here.
  • Teaching opportunities can be offered, according to where Fellows are best able to contribute. There is the potential to work with the taught course elements of the BA in Archaeology & Anthropology (a full list of the undergraduate courses is available here). There may also be opportunities for specialist tuition through undergraduate and postgraduate taught-course dissertation supervision; a full list of our postgraduate taught degrees can be found here.

 


University support and resources for Research Fellows

     The following University resources are available for the School's community of fixed term researchers and colleagues working with them. If you have any queries relating to the guidance or the opportunities set out below, please contact the School at research@arch.ox.ac.uk.

 

University Code of Practice for the Employment and Career Development of Research Staff

The University's Code of Practice is available as a pdf document via this link. The website includes Guidance for Researchers regarding career development, with a checklist of questions that may be useful to consider at different stages within the research contract, and Guidance for PIs, research group leaders, Heads of Department and Departmental Administrators working with research staff.

 


 
Support for Researchers

The University website's Support for Researchers section includes information on:

Guidance on Personal Development Reviews (PDRs), Career Development Reviews (CDRs) and DIY Personal Development is available via the People & Organisational Development team.

A range of training opportunities relating to career development (within and beyond academia) can be found at:

Guidance relating specifically to teaching and supervision opportunities is also provided at this link.

 


 
Applying for grants

Information about current archaeology-related funding opportunities is available on the School's internal Research Support webpage. More general guidance on research funding is available on the University website.

Funding can be sought internally (i.e. from sources within the University) or externally (such as the UK Research Councils, ERC or charities). 

Researchers interested in applying to any external or internal research grant scheme must first obtain School approval. Queries regarding potential funding applications should be sent in the first instance to the School's Research Facilitator.

 


 
Oxford Research Staff Society

The University’s Oxford Research Staff Society is a forum for researchers throughout the University, which represents researchers within and beyond the University, and organises social and professional networking activities across departments and divisions. There are representatives from the School of Archaeology on the Committee. Every term the University also runs a welcome event for new researchers (more information is available here).

 

 

 

     The School of Archaeology is keen to attract and support high-quality early career research. Over the past six years (2018 to the present), the School has hosted six British Academy Postdoctoral Fellows, six Leverhulme Early Career Fellows, six Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellows and two Newton International Fellows, as listed below.

     These Fellowships have covered a broad range of subject areas, including human evolution, palaeoclimate and palaeoecology, ancient and medieval economies, material culture innovation, social inequalities, and modern migrations. Fellows have gone on to pursue further research careers both within the School and at a variety of international institutions.

 

  

                  BRITISH ACADEMY POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWS:

 

 

Dr Charlotte Diffey is a current Fellow, researching 'Plants and Power: The Social Dynamics of Urban Food Production at the Late Bronze Age City of Hattusha', with Prof. Amy Bogaard as mentor.

 

 

Dr Huw Groucutt conducted research on 'The Cultural Dimension of Neanderthal-Homo Sapiens Admixture at the Gateway to Eurasia', from 2016 to 2019, with Prof. Michael Petraglia as mentor. He went on to become a research group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, on the project Extreme Events in Biological, Societal and Earth Systems.

 

Dr Rachael Kiddey conducted research on 'Migrant Materialities: The Material Culture of Forced and Undocumented Migrants in Europe', with Dr Lambros Malafouris as mentor, from 2018 to 2022. Following this, she became a Teaching Associate in Heritage Studies at the Dept of Archaeology, University of Cambridge.

 

 

Dr Samantha Neil conducted the research project 'Reconstructing Lifeways During the Mesolithic and Neolithic in North-west France', with Prof. Rick Schulting as mentor, from 2020 to 2023. 

 

 

Dr Shyama Vermeersch is a current Fellow, researching 'Farming and the rise of wealth inequality in the southern Levant during the Bronze (3,600-1,550 BCE) and Iron Ages (1,550-332 BCE)', with Dr Amy Styring as mentor.

 

 

Dr Jade Whitlam's research project, 'Farming before Agriculture: Investigating Variability in Plant Management and Consumption by Western Asia’s Earliest Cultivators', was undertaken from 2018 to 2021 with Prof. Amy Bogaard and Prof. Mike Charles as mentors. Jade went on to a Departmental Lectureship post in the School of Archaeology, University of Oxford.

 

 

 

 

                     LEVERHULME EARLY CAREER FELLOWS:

 

Dr Paul Albert  conducted the research project 'Lake Suigetsu and Volcanic Ash, The Key to Synchronising Palaeoclimate Archives', from 2015 to 2018, with Prof. Victoria Smith as mentor. He was then awarded a Future Leaders Fellowship at Swansea University College of Science, studying volcanic ash deposits in marine sediments to improve predictions of future eruptions and their impact.

 

Dr Lorena Becerra-Valdivia won a Fellowship to research 'The Role of Abrupt Climatic Shifts in the Initial Settlement of South America', with Prof. Christopher Bronk Ramsey as mentor. Lorena moved to the University of Bristol's Dept of Anthropology and Archaeology as a Senior Research Associate in 2024.

 

 

Dr Tom Brughmans conducted research on 'MERCURY: Simulating the Roman Economy', from 2017 to 2019, with Prof. Andrew Wilson as mentor. He went on to a Marie-Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship at the Faculty of Physics of the University of Barcelona, developing innovative network science methods for archaeological research in general and for the study of the Roman economy specifically.

 

Dr Jane Kershaw’s research project on 'Britain’s Viking Silver Hoards: An Archaeological Analysis of the Sources and Uses of Silver in Scandinavian Britain (850–1050 AD)', was undertaken from 2017 to 2019, with Prof. Helena Hamerow as mentor. She went on to become Principal Investigator on an ERC Starting Grant at the School of Archaeology in Oxford, with the project Silver and the Origins of the Viking Age.

 

Dr Danielle McLean is a current Fellow, researching 'Volcanic Ash for Synchronising Archaeological and Climate Records in Northwest Africa', with Prof. Victoria Smith as mentor.

 

 

Dr Alexander Weide conducted research on 'Co-Evolution of Social and Agricultural Practices at the Dawn of Farming' from 2021 to 2024with Prof. Amy Bogaard as mentor. He went on to become Assistant Professor in Environmental Archaeology at the Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge.

 

 

 

 

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                              MARIE SKŁODOWSKA-CURIE FELLOWS:

 

 

 

Dr Carolyne Douché is a current Fellow, researching the project 'GRAMADIF: Do grains make the difference? Plant economies during the development of urban societies in Mesopotamia', with Prof. Mike Charles as mentor.

 

 

Dr Tanya Dzhanfezova conducted the research project 'Mapping Intentionality: Demonstrating Innovation in Neolithic Pottery Uptake in the Eastern Balkans' from 2018 to 2021, with Mr Chris Doherty and Prof. Amy Bogaard as mentors. She went on to be Associate Professor in Neolithic and Bronze Age Archaeology at St Cyril and St Methodius University of Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria.  

 

Dr Juanjo García-Granero conducted the research project 'An Innovative Approach for the Study of Culinary Practices in Past Societies (CUISINE)', from 2017 to 2019, with Prof. Amy Bogaard as mentor. He then commenced a 3-year 'Juan de la Cierva-incorporación' fellowship at the Institució Milà i Fontanals, Spanish National Research Council Barcelona, from January 2020.

 

Dr Gül Sürmelihindi conducted the research project ‘AQUEA: Ancient Aqueduct Carbonate Deposits as a High-Resolution Archive for the Environment and Archaeology’ from 2021 to 2023, with Prof. Andrew Wilson and Dr Christopher Day (Dept of Earth Sciences) as mentors. She has since returned to a research post in Germany funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).

 

Dr Andrés Teira-Brión conducted the research project 'MILLET: Old crops for new insights: agricultural systems of broomcorn and foxtail millet cultivation in Iberia' from 2022 to 2024, with Prof. Amy Bogaard as mentor. He went on to a role as archaeobotanist at Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA).

 

 

Dr Alexander Weide conducted the research project 'NICHE - Investigating the Ecology, Composition and Exploitability of Wild Cereal Habitats in Relation to Agricultural Origins in the Near East' from 2019 to 2021, with Prof. Amy Bogaard and Prof. Mike Charles as mentors. He went on to take up a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship at the School of Archaeology.

 

 

 

     NEWTON INTERNATIONAL FELLOWS:

 

Dr Teresa Fernandez-Crespo conducted research on 'Identity, Social Inequality and Violence in Late Neolithic/ Early Chalcolithic Southwest Europe' from 2018 to 2020. On completion of her Fellowship, she took up a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship at the Laboratoire Méditerranéen de Préhistoire Europe Afrique (LAMPEA) at Aix-Marseille University, and is currently a Senior Researcher at the University of Valladolid.

 

Dr Russell Kapumha undertook the research project 'On missing links and bridging gaps: The Archaeology of Kubiku, a Zimbabwe culture site in Masvingo, south eastern Zimbabwe' from 2021 to 2023, with Prof. Shadreck Chirikure as mentor.

 

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JUNIOR RESEARCH FELLOWSHIPS AT OXFORD:

Other independent postdoctoral Fellowship opportunities at Oxford are Junior Research Fellowships, which are provided and hosted by Colleges. Recent and current Research Fellows working in the field of archaeology include:

 

Dr Tom Maltas (Career Development Fellow in European Archaeology at Keble College), is researching Agriculture and the Origins of Urbanism in Western Anatolia.