The Royal Historical Society offers the following dedicated funding programmes for early career historians who are within five years of submitting their corrected PhD in a historical subject (see eligibility note below), and who are current members of the Royal Historical Society. Each programme runs twice annually.
If you are not currently a member of the Society, you will need to join before making an application. Please consult the relevant membership categories on the Join Us page for further details.
1. Early Career Fellowship Grants
Early Career Fellowship Grants support career-building research or professional activities in the post-PhD period, providing funding to enable researchers to produce a clearly defined scholarly outcome.
Open to members of the Royal Historical Society who are within five years of submitting their corrected doctoral thesis in a historical subject.*
2. Early Career Research Support Grants
Early Career Research Support Grants provide funding to enable early career historians to undertake research activities essential to the development of their projects.
Supported activities include:
- Visiting archives
- Visiting historic sites
- Conducting research interviews
Open to members of the Royal Historical Society who are within five years of submitting their corrected doctoral thesis in a historical subject.*
3. Applied History Fellowships
In November 2025, the Royal Historical Society, Institute of Historical Research (IHR) and publisher DC Thomson launched a new Applied History Fellowship to support recent post-doctorate historians.
The Fellowships offer a bursary of £12,000 per award for a 6 month period. Fellowships will normally be held between April and September of each year.
*For the purposes of eligibility, the five-year period following submission of the corrected doctoral thesis excludes periods of parental leave, caring responsibilities, or illness. Applicants whose career timelines have been affected by such circumstances are encouraged to apply and may include relevant details within their application.
4. Other RHS funding programmes open to Early Career historians of the Society
In addition to the dedicated grants listed above, current Early Career historians of the Society may also apply for the following RHS funding programmes. For details of each of these awards, and the dates of their next call, please see the pages below.
- David Berry Fellowship, to undertake work relating to the history of Scotland or the Scottish people worldwide
- International Research Support Grants, for members of the Society working outside the UK to undertake research in the UK and Ireland
- Jinty Nelson Teaching Fellowships, to facilitate innovative and creative teaching practice
- RHS / Social History Archive Partnership, providing free access to the online resource The Social History Archive to researchers without existing access via an institution
- Scouloudi Panel Grants, enabling historians to host conference panels
- Scouloudi Public History Grants, to support projects between academic historians and those working outside higher education
- Workshop Grants, enabling historians to come together to discuss projects in detail
All enquiries about these grant schemes should be sent to the Society’s Membership and Programmes Manager at: [email protected].
HEADER IMAGE: L. Steger, Successor to Café J. Scheidl, by Gustav Kalhammer, 1912, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, public domain.