The UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship (FLF) is a prestigious funding opportunity designed to support exceptional researchers and innovators in the UK. Funded by the UK government, it supports early career scientists, engineers, and researchers the chance to develop their leadership potential and conduct ambitious, transformative research across a wide range of disciplines. Through this program, fellows are empowered to drive innovation, address societal challenges, and make significant contributions to the advancement of knowledge and the betterment of society. In December 2023 it was announced that I was one of 75 FLF recipients – securing ~£1.6million and the first ever UKRI FLF for Sheffield Hallam University (SHU).

During the application process I found reading blogs of, and chatting with, previous awardees massively encouraging and informative. Thus, I figured it was only fair I repaid the favour – consequently in this blog I will be reflecting on my experience of the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship application process.

Background

But first let me set the scene a little … Following the completion of my PhD in 2018 and subsequent employment with the Sports Engineering Research Group at SHU, I had a novel research specialism to those around me. This meant there was no senior academic bringing in funding or projects within my field for me to assist on. And being a new ‘Dr’ meant I had neither the previous experience in grant writing or research projects to be successful in being awarded such funding or projects myself. Thus, I worked on everything and anything I could contribute to in order to justify my employment. Whilst this allowed me to develop a massively broad spectrum of experiences and skills sets, it meant trying to a grasp of my specialism on the side.

However, in 2019 I was awarded an Innovate UK ICURe award. This provided me the opportunity to travel the world to meet and talk with experts in my specialism about research and innovation – with the focus of commercialism.

Whilst at the end we deemed commercialisation (at that time) to not be suitable, I left with the most profound understanding of my specialism and – most importantly an idea!

This idea was this was that body measures underpin life as we know it; from the trivial: the shape of the chair you’re sat on, the clothes you are wearing and the dimension of your devices, to the critical: the design of your seat belt, your qualification for medical treatments and the dosages of those treatment. However, children – particularly those from ethnic minority backgrounds, are poorly represented within the anthropometric databases that such items and decisions are based upon, as well as the guidelines and standards used to create them. Which, for the trivial items is an annoyance but for critical items jeopardises – such as in the assessment of health – poses a risk to life. As such I became set on critically evaluate the body measurement measures and methods used in the assessment of child health, with a focus on childhood obesity.

Overflowing with enthusiasm, I headed back home to pursue this idea at SHU. Then BAM! … Covid. Funding calls were cancelled and projects suspended. For the next year I explored every avenue that would allow me to push this idea forward, seeking and engaging in opportunities and experiences that would ensure I have the necessary skills sets to tackle this idea once the world re opened.

In Spring 2021, whilst on maternity leave, I was awarded a Early Career Researchers Fellowship internally, from SHU. This fellowship awarded me with time (6 months) to solely work on the progression of this idea upon my return from maternity leave. I attended conferences, wrote papers, spoke with experts in the field – seeking and engaging in every opportunity and experience that would allow me to progress this idea. Moreover, having returned from maternity leave I felt possessed with determination – if I was to leave my child at child care then the reason for me doing so needed to be excellent, I needed to be contributing or working towards something that would make an impact. Then, at the end of this fellowship – the timing really was truly super! UKRI announced round 7 of their FLF scheme.

I had always olged at the FLF scheme, since becoming aware of it in 2019, with Dr Dan Humphrey’s award at the University of Sheffield. But I had always felt it was something a little too ambitious for me. But in September 2022 the FLF call came at a timely and critical point, whereby I had built a substantial network and ambitious research vision. However, substantial support in scale, flexibility, and duration – beyond that of a standard project grant, was essential to realise and maximise impact of a research vision of this scale and complexity.

Internal selection

For round 7 UKRI capped the number of applicants each institution / business could submit. Within SHU this meant an internal selection process of two stages in which the ‘outline’ of your application progressively got larger.

Written application

Once I had the green light from SHU I worked on finalising the written application. This included:

• discussions with experts in the field to finalise methods.
• liaison with existing FLF fellows, locally and within similar specialisms.
• identification and agreement from the co-investigators, project partners and mentors.
• internal and external (including co-investigators, project partners and mentors) review, and rewriting based on the feedback.
• itemisation of costings.
• confirmation of the support provided by SHU, project partners, sub-contractors and mentors.
• liaison with SHU research & innovation support staff.

My dyslexia means that writing is a challenge. Thus, for me, writing this application took a lot of time. From starting the application; in September, to submission; in the first few days of December, took ~450 hours of which I had to compress into the 3 months before submission, alongside my regular work. The support of the SHU research & innovation support staff was invaluable in providing guidance, motivation and support.

To combine the FLF with personal responsibilities and extend the total duration of the fellowship to accommodate longitudinal data collection, I write in that I was to complete the FLF on a part-time basis (0.8FTE; 100% working time). In hindsight I wish I had enquired with existing FLF fellows as to their starting salary, and costed in my family to join me on my international secondments.

Reviewers comments / response to reviewers

In May 2023 I received the comments from reviewers, and submitted my response to reviewers. This was 5 1/2 months after submission. Thus, the first task was to ensure I refamiliasered myself with my application. As you are restricted on space in which to respond, I then went through and categorised each statement from the reviewers into theme, sub theme and connotation to ensure I could address every comment and collate all similar comments. In responding I tried to retain a concise, positive, honest and graceful approach.

Interview

At the start of August 2023 I was informed I had been selected for interview. Ahead of the interview, I had 3 mock interviews, using the example questions provided by UKRI. These mock interviews were extremely helpful in ensuring I was able to communicate my ambition and research in the most clear and concise manner, calm my nerves and ensure I had my environmental ‘set up’ correct.

The interview itself, in the middle of September 2023, was very quick; only 30 minutes (including a 5 minute presentation). All the guidance from UKRI was helpful and true to their description. As it was online I ensured I was set up early and video called a colleague just before the interview to ensure that all my call settings were correct.

Outcome

It took 6 weeks from interview to outcome was 6 weeks, and I was a nervous wreck for every single one of those days. I know people say don’t put all your eggs in one basket, but I definitely had – and my nerves knew it!  I am so very grateful to have been awarded this fellowship, and to be provided the opportunity to pursue my research vision. I hope that by identifying the most accurate and suitable measures and methods to assess child obesity and health we will ensure accurate diagnosis and monitoring to underpin treatment for individuals and the planning of appropriate services. Ultimately, with the aim is to reduce child obesity rates and improve child health and wellbeing in the UK and globally.

If you have any questions or queries about my project please don’t hesitate to get in contact. To keep up to speed with progress of my fellowship please give me a follow on Linkedin and Twitter.

For more information about work we do in SERG check out our website, our annual review or our MSc Sports Engineering course.