Somerville College is proud to launch its new Early Career Fund for securing academic futures, and pleased to invite further support for this vital programme at Somerville.
The Somerville Early Career Fund has been created to address the funding cuts that recently led to the loss of 4,000 jobs in the humanities and social studies in just one year[1]. By providing gifted young academics with a stable and secure income, Somerville hopes to address the current funding gap by enabling researchers to stay in academia without money worries, thereby strengthening the pipeline of academic provision for future generations.
Why Support Early Career Researchers in the Humanities?
Somerville tutor Dr James Kirkpatrick gives a tutorial on the Somerville Quad, 2024
Early career researchers in the humanities and social sciences currently face almost insurmountable obstacles. The contracts are short-term and precarious. The jobs don’t pay enough to cover living costs, forcing many to take on second and even third jobs. Competition for new positions is savage, forcing academics to take whatever teaching they can pick up and neglect their research.
The prospects for today’s aspiring academics are chilling: a 2026 report by the British Academy records a 20% decline in the number of Early Career Researchers in the humanities since 2016[2]. The impact of job losses is also falling disproportionately on early career researchers, as the widening gap between teaching and research leaves many locked in teaching-only roles[3]. The University of Oxford has not escaped these effects, moreover. In 2026-27, there will be only three AHRC-funded PhDs across the entire university, compared to the 44 AHRC DPhils awarded in 2019 – a 93% drop.
Why Does Supporting the Humanities Matter?
Enid Starkie CBE
Somerville has a long and proud tradition of teaching in the humanities, from Enid Starkie’s appreciations of Rimbaud and Katherine Duncan-Jones on Shakespeare to our role in establishing the teaching of modern languages at Oxford. There is a wider point at stake, however. As the British Academy warns of a slowing pipeline of future academic talent and opportunities[4], we have a responsibility to think of future generations. The humanities provide an essential facet of human experience, developing the critical faculties needed to strengthen our institutions and democracy, and the creative faculties that generate untold value in our creative industries.
Introducing Dr Kieran Brown, the Sue and Kevin Scollan Early Career Fellow
Dr Kieran Brown
We are proud to introduce the inaugural beneficiary of the Somerville Early Career Fund. Dr Kieran Brown will join Somerville for three years as the Sue and Kevin Scollan Early Career Fellow. Dr Brown works at the intersection of literature, economics and philosophy, where he recently completed an edited collection with Palgrave Macmillan entitled Inflationary Modernities: Literature, Culture and Economy. He has published widely on modernism, economy and critical theory, and was last year a stipendiary lecturer at Somerville, teaching literature from 1830 to the present.
The Sue and Kevin Scollan Early Career Fellow was enabled by a significant gift from long-standing supporters of Somerville’s academic programme, Sue Scollan (née Green, 1978, Chemistry) and her husband, Kevin. Sue and Kevin previously enabled the creation of the Sue and Kevin Scollan Fellowships in Organic Chemistry, and provided significant support to the Dorothy Hodgkin Career Development Fellowship, which supported female early-career researchers in STEM. Sue kindly joined us at this year’s Somerville Association dinner on Saturday 19th September for the announcement of this transformative gift.
Dr Kieran Brown and Sue Scollan at Somerville College, Sept 2026
Speaking about the Early Career Fund, Sue and Kevin commented: “We were both shocked when we heard how precarious life has become for the next generation of academics. When Catherine shared her vision with us, we were excited by it and keen to support it as best we could.”
Dr Brown commented: “Literary criticism, especially in the form of book writing, is a long-form art. To that end, I’d like to say how grateful I am to Somerville and Sue and Kevin Scollan for giving me the time, resources and some of the most remarkable colleagues in the world to help me undertake my research. Somerville has become a refuge for those who are still committed to the value of humanities research today, and I’m beyond proud to be a part of that.”
Finally, Somerville College Principal Catherine Royle, commented: “We all value STEM, but man cannot live by STEM alone. In an age of AI, we need the critical thinking skills fostered by the Humanities and Social Sciences more than ever. And we need art, literature, and music for their own sakes, both as people and societies. That’s why launching the Early Career Fund is one of our most important projects.”
Next Steps for the Early Career Fund
Somerville has a bold vision in place for the future of this pioneering programme. Following a significant donation from alumnus Dr Niels Kröner, College will create a new three-year Junior Research Fellowship in support of our tutorial fellow in Ancient History Prof Beate Dignas. Beate is working on a very exciting Oxford-Berlin collaboration exploring the links between religion and social inclusion in antiquity. We are also grateful to Lisette and Robert Henrey, who have also made a significant contribution to support a new ECF, as yet unconfirmed.
Our ambition is to create a major fund that is able to allocate funding to those early career disciplines most needing of support, so as to ensure that Somerville remains a cutting-edge academic institution for years to come. All donations – large or small – will support our academic excellence and be much appreciated.
To discuss supporting this initiative, please contact our Development Director (and former classicist at Somerville!) Sara Kalim – sara.kalim@some.ox.ac.uk
To give now, please use the following link, which supports academic projects as part of the RISE Campaign: RISE for Excellence
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/20/the-guardian-view-on-humanities-cuts-in-universities-academic-departments-are-more-than-cost-centres
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/education/2026/jul/14/university-job-cuts-humanities-social-sciences
[3] https://www.linkedin.com/posts/philbaty_humanities-hardest-hit-as-early-career-opportunities-activity-7486316378413625345-eRRj/
[4] https://www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-charities-and-societies-2026-7-british-academy-urges-intervention-over-slowing-academic-pipeline/