UK IC Postdoctoral Research Fellowships

Scheme overview

The Government Office for Science offers UK Intelligence Community (IC) Postdoctoral Research Fellowships to outstanding early career science or engineering researchers. These Fellowships are designed to promote unclassified basic research in areas of interest to the intelligence, security and defence communities. The National Protective Security Authority, Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, Home Office, the National Cyber Security Centre, and UK National Authority for Counter-Eavesdropping are among the organisations represented in the UK Intelligence Community for this scheme.

One round of applications is held annually. Each year members of the IC identify research topics and the Research Fellows work locally with their University Research Advisor to develop and submit research proposals that align with the topics.

The research is conducted by the Research Fellows while working in partnership with the University Research Advisor and collaborating with an advisor from the Intelligence Community (IC Advisor).

The Research Fellowships are aimed at early-career researchers from all branches of science and engineering who have up to five years postdoctoral experience. Only citizens of Australia, Canada, the EEA, New Zealand, Switzerland, the UK or the US can apply. 

Each application for the UK IC Postdoctoral Research Fellowships is capped at a maximum contribution of £250,000 over the 2-year period, at 80% of the full economic costs (fEC).   

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In addition to the direct financial support, the scheme benefits include:

• Mentoring support from an Academy Fellow to offer advice on research and career development
• Expert advice and support from the IC Advisor
• Reduction of teaching and administrative duties to dedicate time to research
• Training, events and additional funding opportunities
• Networking opportunities with other Research Fellows, Academy Fellows and the IC Community
• Access to the Awardee Excellence Community, that brings together awardees from all career stages and disciplines to share their expertise, to collaborate and to contribute new perspectives to the Academy’s work. The community will give you the opportunity to meet, learn from and support other awardees beyond your immediate cohort, as well as a broader cross section of Academy Fellows through a programme of events, and opportunities to connect in person and online. 

Awardees of this fellowship are eligible to apply for a Global Talent Visa under the fast-track process of endorsement.

The Royal Academy of Engineering and the Government Office for Science are committed to diversity and inclusion and welcomes applications from all under-represented groups across engineering. It is the Academy's policy to ensure that no applicant is disadvantaged or receives less favourable treatment because of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation.

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Research topics 2025

1. Novel S&T solutions for unexpected loss of Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) capabilities
2. Preparation, quantification and characterisation of trace explosive samples
3. The psychology of intuition - the implications associated with creativity and cognitive bias for the security community
4. Machine learning trained fingerprinting of the near field measurement
5. Light weight metamaterial ultrawideband frequency absorber
6. Utilizing a modern mobile to provide a level of TSCM capability
7. Utility of synthetically generated data for training or testing AI/ML systems
8. Bio-manufacture of quantum technology
9. Novel approaches to space domain awareness Radio Frequency Satellite Characterisation
10. Improved spatial resolution for optical surveillance using distributed apertures
11. Ocean acoustic modelling for superior environment intelligence
12. Aging of fingermarks. Can fingermark deposition time be determined from crime scenes/objects? 
13. Exploiting biology for overmatch compute advantage
14. Integrating multimodality and context to automatic language analysis
15. Barriers to adoption of a security-minded approach to information management
16. Can obscured biometric markers be detected from crime scenes/objects with skin barriers in place?
17. Autonomous AI-powered red teaming for enhanced cybersecurity
18. Novel methods for structural health monitoring and detection of faults
19. Identifying hazardous materials using spectroscopic or quantum sensing techniques
20. Wideband Electromagnetic field measurement with a low cost, size, weight and power Quantum sensing solution
21. Advanced processing for real-time RF mapping
22. Central bank digital currency technology: the impact on global finance and implications for national security
23. Performance improvement from antenna diversity from space platforms
24. Development high-throughput informatic tools to support proteomic analysis in complex samples
25. Advanced Techniques for Antenna-Receiver Performance Enhancement and Miniaturization (ATARPEM)
26. Enhancing the effectiveness of routine security scanning checks at border crossings 
27. Using AI to power synthetic biology applications