Our Illuminate Global Challenges Fellowships
WE'RE LOOKING FOR MINDS THAT AMAZE
Push boundaries, build partnerships and deliver research with real-world impact
Our Illuminate Global Challenges Fellowships are an opportunity for exceptional and ambitious early-career researchers to join Queen's to focus on achieving research excellence that aligns to our strategic vision.
As a Russell Group University, Queen's has a reputation for delivering world-class research
Successful Fellows will join a strong and talented team of researchers on a three-year scheme with a career pathway to a permanent academic post upon successful completion of the Fellowship. Fellows will benefit from membership of a dedicated Fellowship Academy, designed to provide targeted development and support for researchers with outstanding potential, including a Fellows’ Network and bespoke mentoring.
Applications for the Illuminate Global Challenges Fellowship are now open.
Thank you for considering applying to the Illuminate Fellowship Scheme at Queen's University Belfast. Queen's is an exciting place that delivers both local and international impact. Queen's University is a member of the prestigious Russell Group of UK research intensive universities, combining excellence in research and education with a student-centred ethos. We look forward to welcoming candidates and seeing you become the next generation of world-class researchers at Queen's. Professor Ian Greer
President and Vice-Chancellor
To build on our world-leading research, this round focuses on priority areas for Medicine, Health and Life Sciences.
You should demonstrate how your research aligns to one or more of our priority areas and focuses on Queen’s Global Challenges themes;
- Secure Connected Systems and Economies
- Healthy, Equal Societies
- Resilient Sustainable Planet
- Diverse, Creative Cultures
You will hold a relevant degree with a PhD (or equivalent), have 2–8 years’ post-PhD experience, and a high-quality publication record.
Further details, including essential criteria, are available in the Application Pack.
Fellows benefit from:
- Membership of the Fellowship Academy, offering tailored development, mentoring, and networking.
- A generous Fellowship Enhancement Award up to £60,000 and funding for a full-time PhD studentship.
- A competitive salary (£51,016–£62,695) plus generous benefits and wellbeing support.
- In addition, the successful candidates will have a pathway to a permanent academic post upon completion of the fellowship and related criteria.
The Illuminate Fellowship Programme offers a unique opportunity for researchers and innovators to tackle some of the most pressing global health challenges through interdisciplinary collaboration and cutting-edge science. Across a diverse range of themes, this initiative supports transformative research with real world impact.
Explore fellowship routes that span:
- Illuminate Global Challenges: Fellowship applications welcome across our Faculty’s three key challenge themes of one health, precision health and equal health
- Future Medicines Institute: Advancing experimental therapeutics at the Chemistry-Biology-Medicine interface, including Medicinal Chemistry, bioconjugation, and pre-clinical translation.
- LLNI Blood Cancer: Focused on translational research in blood cancers, especially lymphoma, with strengths in immunology, genomics, cell therapy and biomarker discovery, delivered with industry partners.
- School of Pharmacy: Supporting innovation in pharmaceutical sciences and practice, including drug delivery, biosensors, respiratory medicine and clinical pharmacy.
For more details and how to apply for each of the four fellowship routes, please click on the relevant tab below.
-
Global Challenges Fellowships
- Cancer, eye disease, and lung inflammation/regeneration - multidisciplinary and/or patient-based investigations with emphasis on immunology, molecular/cellular biology or microbiology, including pathogen establishment and proliferation.
- Understanding Health and Disease; Transforming Agrifood Systems; Sustaining Ecosystems & Biodiversity.
- Data, AI and advanced platforms in healthcare addressing societal health challenges.
- Public health and systems - complexity science, health systems and policy research, public health modelling, behaviour change, implementation science, planetary health, epidemiology and data science.
- Maternal & child health; chronic illness; palliative care; education & practice.
- Pharmaceutical sciences, pharmacy practice, clinical pharmacy - drug delivery, biomaterials, advanced manufacture, drug targeting, biosensors, pharmaceutical microbiology and microbiomics, respiratory medicine, primary and secondary care.
For further details and to apply, click here.
- Future Medicines Institutes Fellowships
- Advancing experimental therapeutics at the chemistry–biology–medicine interface.
- Chemical biology, medicinal chemistry, bioconjugation/protein therapeutics (e.g. ADCs), target discovery/validation, and pre-clinical translation, including collaboration with clinical/industry partners.
For further details and to apply, click here.
- LLNI Blood Cancer Fellowships
- Blood cancers (with emphasis on lymphoma) aligned to clinical and translational strengths.
- Areas spanning immunology, genomics/precision medicine, tumour microenvironment, cell therapy, biomarker discovery, and translational/clinical research in partnership with NHS and industry collaborators.
- Engagement with Lymphoma NI is expected as part of the fellowship community.
For further details and to apply, click here.
- School of Pharmacy
- Drug Delivery and Biomaterials: development and translation of natural and synthetic polymeric drug delivery systems, advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing, experience in the evaluation of drug delivery systems and/or biomaterials.
- Infection and Antimicrobial Resistance: development of novel approaches to improve lung infection management in respiratory infectious disease, development and translation of novel biofilm control approaches or technologies, antimicrobial resistance evolution, mechanisms and diagnostic technologies.
- Nanomedicine and Biotherapeutics: development and translation of natural and synthetic polymeric nanoparticle drug delivery systems, expertise in drug target identification and validation, interdisciplinary expertise in polymer chemistry, biomaterials, cell biology, advanced imaging modalities, functional or 3D preclinical models, and animal studies.
For further details and to apply, click here.
Hear from some of our fellows
Dr Bianca Plouffe (Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology of GPCRs) and Dr Dan Middleton (Cancer Epidemiology Group in the Centre for Public Health) talk about their experiences of the Fellowship Academy, and about life in Northern Ireland.
Fellowship Academy at Queen's
Our Academy Fellows are researchers from across all three Faculties, who are developing their own independent research projects and broader research vision. They are a diverse and unique group who are at the cutting edge of their research areas. Alongside developing in their own areas, as members of the Fellowship Academy they are supported and encouraged to grow as leaders in Queen’s. If successful in your application, you will be invited to join the Fellowship Academy, which offers Fellows access to a wide range of development opportunities aligned with key pillars such as research, leadership, collaboration, and impact. Support includes mentoring and sponsorship from academic leaders, and structured leadership programmes. Fellows also benefit from university-wide resources and online learning to support their integration and growth.
Contact us
For information on Fellowships at Queen's, contact us at fellowships@qub.ac.uk
Researchers at Queen's help tackle the global challenges of our age, changing people’s lives for the better. We are a world-class international university built on teaching excellence, leading-edge research, innovation, collaboration and engagement. Queen’s has a proud history of conducting innovative, impactful and world-leading research that has positively changed people’s lives. Our ambition for 2030 is to further enhance our impact by strengthening our research position and working with industry to broaden our translational impact and innovation, ensuring we deliver high-quality, world-leading research, which addresses local and global challenges.
Our Research
Queen’s Fellowship Academy supports a diverse group of independent researchers from all three Faculties, helping them grow as leaders in their fields. Fellows benefit from tailored development opportunities across research, leadership, collaboration, and impact, with access to mentoring, sponsorship, and structured programmes. Membership is open to recipients of Fellowships of at least two years’ duration, such as the Illuminate Fellowship Programme.
Fellowship Academy
Belfast stands as an inviting capital city that's easy to get around and affordable, making it an ideal location for students to study. The city flourishes as a vibrant hub for great cuisine, culture, arts and shopping, and our university holds its place at the centre of Belfast's social and cultural life. Northern Ireland is known for its warm hospitality and friendly locals who are eager to welcome you to your home away from home.
Living in Belfast
Nearly 900 staff from more than 85 countries are engaged in a wide variety of jobs at Queen's. Our University has many international staff working alongside colleagues from across the United Kingdom and Ireland. The International Staff Support Team provides prospective and current Queen's University Belfast staff with immigration and other relevant advice and signposting to support and assist them.
International Staff Support