Human Past Fellowship Programme
2025-26


Programme and Eligibility Criteria
The Human Past Residential Fellowship Programme, an initiative by the Center for the Human Past, is designed to foster a collaborative environment where early-stage and established scholars can converge across a wide range of disciplines, such as archaeology, population genetics and historical linguistics. These fields collectively explore the shared history of the world’s populations over the past 10,000 years, a period marked by the advent of agrarian food production, population growth and linguistic changes, as well as the emergence of early civilizations.
The programme aims to attract research fellows pursuing research on different aspects of the human past, combining methods and materials from different disciplines. The programme’s primary focus is on research work relating to three major migration events: The Indo-European-, Bantu- and Austronesian expansions. We invite scholars who are interested in exploring archaeological evidence, linguistic changes, or genetic factors associated with any of these major archaeological and linguistic expansions.
The Human Past Fellowship Programme is funded by the Swedish Research Council as an integral component of the Center for the Human Past, which is recognized as a Center of Excellence.
The Fellowship Programme offers one Young Scholar Fellowship and one Advanced Fellowship.
Early-career scholars applying for the Young Scholar Fellowship should have a promising track record of independent achievements at the post-doctoral level (at the most seven years from PhD degree), including significant publications, and be active in international fora.
For the Advanced Fellowship, the candidate should, at the time of application, have held a PhD (or equivalent doctoral degree) for at least seven years, have a track record of significant and original research achievements, and be active at the international forefront of his/her research field.
Candidates are not required to hold a university position at the time of application.
Remuneration
Fellows receive a monthly salary. The Collegium, however, does not match fellows’ salaries. The Collegium hopes that fellows will explore possibilities to apply for other outside support (such as sabbatical salaries and/or grants).
The Collegium will provide and pay for accommodation for fellows who do not live in the Stockholm–Uppsala region. When possible, the Collegium also tries to offer accommodation to fellows from Stockholm who are not able to commute.
Application Instructions and Deadline
Final decisions are taken by the Principal of the Collegium in consultation with a selection committee. This means that all applications (including personal data) will be downloaded by members of the selection committee, and may also be sent to external referees, outside of the EU/EEA.
The application deadline for the academic year 2025 - 2026 has passed.
Applicants will be notified of the results through the Varbi online application system no later than 28 February 2025. If you get a new email address, please make sure to update it in your Varbi account.
If you have any questions related to the Varbi online application system, please contact Varbi’s support: varbi@uadm.uu.se
If you have any questions regarding the thematic focus of the programme, please contact marzena.norling@ebc.uu.se
If you have any questions about the Human Past Fellowship Programme, please contact the secretariat: fellowselection@swedishcollegium.se