Global Majority Fellowships 2025-2026

Join the Designing Responsible NLP Global Majority Fellowship Scheme at the University of Edinburgh!

Deadline: 31st July 2025, 23:59 British Summer Time

Are you an early-career researcher or professional with a passion for Natural Language Processing (NLP) and looking for an extraordinary opportunity to expand your horizons? The UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training in Designing Responsible NLP at the University of Edinburgh is thrilled to announce the launch of our Global Majority Fellowship Scheme, to be hosted at the Edinburgh Futures Institute and the School of Informatics. This initiative is focused towards early-career researchers and professionals from the global majority* who are eager to challenge the norms and enrich the field of NLP with diverse perspectives. Fellows will be embedded within the interdisciplinary responsible AI community at the Edinburgh Futures Institute, and can mentor, collaborate and exchange ideas with our doctoral students and their academic supervisors. The aim of these Fellowships is to support global majority researchers and professionals to develop their research network, and to enrich the training of our doctoral students

The Fellowship comes with a stipend for living expenses and travel, seeking to enable Fellows to be hosted in Edinburgh for between 2-3 months in duration. We expect the first Fellow will join us in Edinburgh between January and March 2026.

Fo the first year of this fellowship scheme, we are welcoming applications on the topic of “Responsible NLP and Digital Cultural Heritage” which will be supported by Professor Melissa Terras.

*That is people who are black, Asian, brown, dual-heritage, indigenous to the global south, and/or have been racialised as ‘ethnic minorities’.

Topic Details:

The focus for this year’s Global Majority Fellowship is to explore innovative but responsible applications of Natural Language Processing in analysing, enhancing, understanding, or reusing digital cultural heritage collections, including those from galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (GLAM), or other communities. This interdisciplinary research topic may cover:

  • Identifying and navigating linguistic bias in cultural data sets
  • Computational aspects of creating Language Models from heritage collections
  • The potential for NLP to contextualise marginalised voices and communities within large scale digitised collections
  • Social, ethical, financial, institutional and legal aspects of the use of heritage collections to create Language Models
  • The intersection of NLP with related AI technologies within the cultural heritage space, particularly Advanced Text Recognition.
  • Any other related topic, including practice-based creative interventions in this area.

Fellowship Highlights:

  • Duration & Support: Engage in a 2 to 3-month fellowship (during academic teaching semester) with living expenses up to £2,500 per month, including a travel grant of £1,000 to cover your journey to and from Edinburgh.
  • Innovative Environment: Be part of the vibrant academic community at the newly opened Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI) and collaborate with top-tier researchers across EFI, the School of Informatics, and beyond.
  • VISA Fees Covered:  We facilitate your journey as an Academic Visitor, covering VISA fees for you and your dependants (more information here).
  • Engagement & Dissemination: We will organise a public lecture for you during your visit, engage in mentorship meetings, invite you to participate in events with our Centre for Doctoral Training students and run a masterclass with them, and produce a featured blog post about your experience.

Who Should Apply?:

You can apply if you are an early career researcher defined as either of the following:

  • within eight years of receiving your PhD or equivalent professional training (measured from the date of successful PhD viva to the point of applying)
  • within six years of your first academic appointment (paid contract of employment which lists research or teaching as the primary role).

Benefits of the Fellowship:

  • Gain unparalleled access to academic mentoring, networking events, and seminars through collaboration with Centre’s supervisors and University of Edinburgh academics across multiple disciplines.
  • Opportunities to integrate into seminars in cooperation with Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and the Institute for Design Informatics enhancing both professional and personal growth.
  • Access to comprehensive training sessions, wellness activities, and public seminars that are part of the EFI’s research initiatives.

Timeline:

Applications are open until the 31st July 2025. We invite applicants to prepare for potential interviews at the end of August (these will take place virtually). This timeline will ensure you are ready to start your fellowship in the heart of Edinburgh during January to March 2026.

How to apply:

In order to apply, you need to:

  1. Complete and submit the application form here: https://forms.office.com/e/JDFX6B0rsc

2. Prepare a CV, Cover Letter and Research Proposal and send these to: gmf.nlp@inf.ed.ac.uk

The CV should be a maximum of 2-pages, and cover relevant work and professional experience, qualifications, and a list of relevant publications, projects and / or grants.

The Cover Letter should be between 1 and 2 pages, and should describe your fit to the opportunity, highlighting anything in particular in your CV and your research proposal that you want to draw the committee’s attention to.

The Research Proposal should include:

  • A description of the research project you would seek to undertake as part of your Fellowship – this should be aligned to the topical focus of this Fellowship call. (maximum of 500 words)
  • A description of how your research and/or professional responsibilities and experience intersects with responsible NLP. (maximum of 250 words)
  • A description of how you see the visit to Edinburgh both impacting your research and you in terms of your professional development. (maximum of 500 words max)
  • A summary of what you could offer as a masterclass for our Centre for Doctoral Training students. (maximum of 200 words)

Applicants must submit both the form and the email with the three attachments by 23:59 British Summer Time on the 31st July 2025 in order to be considered for the Fellowships.

If you have any questions:

For more information on the Fellowship, or if you have any questions, please contact our team by emailing gmf.nlp@inf.ed.ac.uk.