Leverhulme Trust Grants: Prizes, Projects and Fellowships

The Leverhulme Trust is one of the UK's best-known independent research funders. It funds fundamental, curiosity-driven research across most subjects, and its schemes run from prizes for early career researchers to centres funded for a decade. Several Leverhulme schemes are searched for every year as their rounds come round, so this guide sets out how each works, who can apply and the dates the Trust has published. Every fact comes from the Trust's own website, checked on the date shown on this page.

What the Trust funds

The Trust's priority is research of a fundamental nature. That shapes what it will not fund as much as what it will. For Research Project Grants, for example, it says it does not generally fund medical and clinical research, research aiming to influence current policy, research with immediate commercial application, or work that is mainly about assembling a database, advocacy, capacity building, networking or skills development. Its reason is that other funders put substantial money into those areas.

Most Leverhulme funding goes to researchers at UK universities and similar institutions. Charities, CICs and businesses cannot apply in their own right, which is worth knowing before you spend time on it. If your organisation wants to fund its own project, our guide on how to approach charitable trusts covers funders that do support community and voluntary work.

Leverhulme closing dates

The Trust publishes its closing dates in one place. When we checked, it listed these, all at 4pm UK time unless stated otherwise:

Scheme	Closing date
Research Fellowships	5 November 2026
Emeritus Fellowships	28 January 2027
Early Career Fellowships	18 February 2027
Leverhulme Research Centres	June 2027
Visiting Professorships	2 October 2027
Philip Leverhulme Prizes	2027, date to be confirmed
Research Project Grants (outlines)	No deadline

Philip Leverhulme Prizes

Philip Leverhulme Prizes recognise researchers at an early stage of their careers whose work has already had international impact and whose future is exceptionally promising. Each prize is worth £100,000, which can be spent over 2 to 3 years on anything that advances the winner's research, within the categories the Trust normally supports.

Who can be nominated

• Nominees must hold a permanent post, or a long-term fellowship that lasts beyond the prize, at a UK university with research degree awarding powers. People without a salary are not eligible.
• Nominees should normally have been awarded their doctorate no more than ten years before the closing date. For the 2026 round, that closing date was 14 May 2026. Distinct career breaks for caring responsibilities or illness are taken into account.
• Nominations come from the nominee's head of department, or equivalent. You cannot nominate yourself.
• No institution can submit more than three nominations in any prize subject.

Rotating subject areas

Prizes are awarded in six subject areas each year, rotating on a three-year cycle. You cannot be nominated in more than one subject in a cycle.

• 2026: Biological Sciences, History, Law, Mathematics and Statistics, Philosophy and Theology, Sociology and Social Policy.
• 2027: Classics, Earth Sciences, Physics, Politics and International Relations, Psychology, Visual and Performing Arts.
• 2028: Archaeology, Chemistry, Economics, Engineering, Geography, Languages and Literatures.

Two areas are always excluded: studies of disease, illness and disability in humans and animals, and research intended to inform clinical practice or the development of medical applications. Nominees hear the result by the end of the November after they are nominated.

Research Project Grants

Research Project Grants are the Trust's main open scheme for original research projects. Grants are up to £500,000, held for between six months and five years.

There is no deadline. You submit an outline application at any time, which the Trust says it normally assesses within three months, or up to six months at times of exceptional demand. If the outline is approved, you are invited to submit a detailed application.

Applicants must already be employed by an eligible institution, or be retired academics who have kept close links with it. Eligible institutions include UK universities and UK-based independent research organisations that UKRI defines as eligible. The Trust can cover teaching replacement or a salary contribution of up to £20,000 a year each, pro rata, and consultants up to £5,000 a year where their expertise is essential. It will not fund the continuation of existing research.

Visiting Professorships

Visiting Professorships let a UK institution invite an eminent senior professor from overseas to bring new expertise to an underrepresented area of research and share it with staff and students. The Trust says collaborative research alone is not enough to justify a grant, and it gives priority to new or recent collaborations. Awards are £10,000 to £150,000, and applications outside that range are not eligible.

A visit must last at least three months and no more than 12. Professorships of six months or more can be split into two or more visits over up to two years, while shorter ones must be one visit. The award should start within 15 months of the offer. Anyone who has held a Leverhulme Visiting Professorship before can apply again only after seven years.

The next round opens on 1 May 2027 and closes on 2 October 2027. Both the visitor and the UK host institution must approve the application by the closing date, and the Trust reports results within five to six months.

Early Career Fellowships

Early Career Fellowships last three years and are jointly funded with the host university. The Trust contributes 50% of the fellow's salary costs in year one, up to £56,000, and 50% in years two and three, up to £28,000 a year, with the university paying the rest. Fellows can also ask for up to £6,000 a year in research expenses.

For the round closing at 4pm on 18 February 2027, candidates must have a doctorate when the fellowship starts and must have submitted their thesis for examination no earlier than 18 February 2023, unless they have had a career break. Anyone who has held postdoctoral posts for their own research project totalling three years or more is not eligible.

Leverhulme Research Centres

Leverhulme Research Centres are the Trust's largest awards: up to £10 million for up to 10 years, with a mid-term review, for a centre on a large-scale research agenda. Smaller and shorter centres are also welcome. At least 75% of the money must go on research staff.

The Trust says the Leverhulme Centenary Research Centre round is expected to open in February 2027, with outline applications due in June 2027. Applications on any topic in the Trust's remit will be welcome, and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge and Imperial College London, previously excluded, will be eligible. The process has two stages: a short outline with a five-page description, then an invited detailed proposal with a statement of support from the institution.

Tips before you apply

• Check the exclusions first. Leverhulme is clear about the fields it does not fund. If your work is mainly clinical or policy-focused, look at other funders.
• Talk to your research office. Several schemes limit how many nominations or applications an institution can make.
• Use the outline stage well. For Research Project Grants, the outline is your first test. Our guide on how funders assess grant applications covers what assessors look for.
• Sign up to the Leverhulme Bulletin. The Trust uses it to announce opening and closing dates.

Finding Leverhulme opportunities

We track Leverhulme schemes as their rounds open on the Leverhulme Trust funder page. You can also browse funding for universities and research organisations or see grants closing this month from every funder.