The Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) UK Intelligence Community (IC) Postdoctoral Research Fellowships award funding of up to £250,000 over two years to support outstanding postdoctoral science or engineering researchers undertaking unclassified basic research in areas of interest to the UK intelligence, security and defence communities.

The awards will fund up to 80% (fEC) of projects that address any of the priority topics, which are identified by members of the UK Intelligence Community. The priority topics for 2025 include:

1. Novel S&T solutions for unexpected loss of Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) capabilities.
2. Preparation, quantification and characterisation of trace explosive samples.
3. The psychology of intuition – the implications associated with creativity and cognitive bias for the security community.
4. Machine learning trained fingerprinting of the near field measurement.
5. Light weight metamaterial ultrawideband frequency absorber.
6. Utilising a modern mobile to provide a level of TSCM capability.
7. Utility of synthetically generated data for training or testing AI/ML systems.
8. Bio-manufacture of quantum technology.
9. Novel approaches to space domain awareness Radio Frequency Satellite Characterisation.
10. Improved spatial resolution for optical surveillance using distributed apertures.
11. Ocean acoustic modelling for superior environment intelligence.
12. Aging of fingermarks: determining fingermark deposition time from crime scenes/objects?
13. Exploiting biology for overmatch compute advantage.
14. Integrating multimodality and context to automatic language analysis.
15. Barriers to adoption of a security-minded approach to information management.
16. Can obscured biometric markers be detected from crime scenes/objects with skin barriers in place?
17. Autonomous AI-powered red teaming for enhanced cybersecurity.
18. Novel methods for structural health monitoring and detection of faults.
19. Identifying hazardous materials using spectroscopic or quantum sensing techniques.
20. Wideband Electromagnetic field measurement with a low cost, size, weight and power Quantum sensing solution.
21. Advanced processing for real-time RF mapping.
22. Central bank digital currency technology: the impact on global finance and implications for national security.
23. Performance improvement from antenna diversity from space platforms.
24. Development high-throughput informatic tools to support proteomic analysis in complex samples.
25. Advanced Techniques for Antenna-Receiver Performance Enhancement and Miniaturisation (ATARPEM).
26. Enhancing the effectiveness of routine security scanning checks at border crossings.
27. Using AI to power synthetic biology applications.

In addition to funding for the research project, fellows will also receive mentoring support from an Academy Fellow, expert advice and support from an Intelligence Community Advisor, and partial alleviation of their teaching and administrative duties to dedicate time to research.

Application is open to early career postdoctoral researchers, within five years of award of a PhD, who are citizens of Australia, Canada, the EEA, New Zealand, the UK or the US.

Fellows will be employed by, and based at, a UK higher education institution/university department, or other UK organisation eligible to receive UKRI funding, which should be capable of fully supporting the research project and researcher. Current PhD students who will have been awarded their PhD, or had their PhD unconditionally approved before 1 August 2025, are also eligible to apply.

(This Bulletin item was the subject of a ResearchConnect news alert.)