Alex McLean<p>In the UK, it's possible to apply for up to 7 years of full time funding to do fundamental research without any academic affiliation, via the future leader fellowships scheme. Most with recent experience of UK academia will see the advantages of doing research hosted by a small non-profit rather than a massive, deeply hierarchical institution.</p><p>I'm lucky to have one of these fellowships with the lovely non-profit, non-academic org <span class="h-card"><a href="https://mastodon.thentrythis.org/@thentrythis" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@<span>thentrythis</span></a></span> , and will be talking about it as part of this 'webinar' <a href="https://iuk.ktn-uk.org/events/future-leaders-fellowships-round-9-business-competition-support-webinar/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">iuk.ktn-uk.org/events/future-l</span><span class="invisible">eaders-fellowships-round-9-business-competition-support-webinar/</span></a></p><p>TBH it'd be really hard to navigate the application process without academic experience (which I do have), but it's possible, and I have the feeling that success rates for business-hosted applications are higher than academic ones.</p><p>Also <span class="h-card"><a href="https://mastodon.green/@amberfirefly" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@<span>amberfirefly</span></a></span> wrote about the experience from an organisational perspective here: <a href="https://thentrythis.org/notes/2022/08/25/research-funding-for-small-organisations-our-future-leaders-fellowship-experiences/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">thentrythis.org/notes/2022/08/</span><span class="invisible">25/research-funding-for-small-organisations-our-future-leaders-fellowship-experiences/</span></a><br><a href="https://post.lurk.org/tags/ukriflf" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>ukriflf</span></a></p><p>I think we have been the only non-profit to successfully apply for one of these and really need like-minded orgs to copy us!</p>