Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies Core Fellowships

HCAS invites applications for fixed-term appointments to begin in August 2026. We are looking for 10–15 Core Fellows representing the career stages of early career (post-doctoral researchers), mid-career (university researchers) and full professors (visiting professors). Professorial fellows are appointed for a term of six to twelve months, university researchers for one to two years, and post-doctoral researchers for one to three years, beginning in fall 2026. The Fall 2025 application period begins on 21 August 2025 and ends on 11 September 2025 at 23:59 local Helsinki time.

The Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies was established in 2001 as an independent institute of the University of Helsinki to enhance scholarly excellence in the humanities and social sciences, promote interaction between different fields of academic research, and to further international academic cooperation. The Collegium’s fellowships are open to researchers in the humanities, social sciences, educational sciences, theology, and law, and to researchers in other fields focusing on topics related to the human sciences. The applicant’s doctoral degree must have been conferred by the application deadline.

The Collegium appoints fellows at various stages in their academic careers and from different disciplines, but has no fixed quotas for seniority, discipline, nationality or gender. The Collegium is committed to promoting equality and preventing discrimination.

Applications must be prepared in accordance with the specified instructions (see link above). Successful applicants should provide evidence of their ability to work in an international, interdisciplinary research environment and of their ability to publish at a high international level. In the application documents, applicants must also indicate how they plan to participate in the interdisciplinary cooperation central for the Collegium as an institute of advanced study. Relevant evidence may be provided by reference to publications, academic activities or participation in research projects or posts at research institutes, or in the research proposal itself. Planned or existing cooperation with researchers of the University of Helsinki may be explained in the letter of motivation, in which the applicants are asked to explain why the University of Helsinki is a suitable environment for their research.

The Collegium does not consider research plans that propose to rewrite the applicant’s PhD thesis as a book. The Collegium will not grant two consecutive funding periods to one researcher. If an applicant has been at the Collegium before, at least five years must have passed after the previous fellowship term, and the applicant must justify why they ought to be accepted for another funding period.