job - How do new faculty members in the UK start their career without startup grants?

I'm starting a lecturer position in Computer Science in the UK, which is roughly equivalent to a tenure-track assistant professor position. However, the department head told me that, while they do provide some support for conference travel, they do not offer any kind of startup package and we are expected to acquire our own grant funding to hire postdocs etc.

• Is it the norm that new faculty members do not receive any kind of startup support in the UK?


• If yes, how do new faculty members start building up their career? (I would love to continue devoting all of my time to research, but I will have some teaching obligations which will certainly lower my individual research output.)

I'm still a PostDoc in Canada for a few months and my supervisor is as puzzled as I am about this information.

Background: The UK university is part of the Russell Group, which is a self-selected collection of UK universities that are (supposedly) the most research-active.

Edit (Regarding Teaching Load): I have a 1+1 teaching load (reduced to 1+0 in the first year) but I was told that, in the UK workload model, one also has other obligations such as tutorial classes, taking on several project students, and master thesis supervisions. These students are being assigned to me and their projects are not necessarily related to my research.

Answer

Research grants for new academic staff are offered competitively by the various research councils, depending on your subject area.

You can learn about the various research councils and what grants they operate through the web site for Research Councils UK.

For Computer Science you should be eligible for an EPSRC New Investigator Award (up to £100k), however the competition is fierce, so you should be sure to seek the advice and support of the research office of your University who can assist you in writing a successful grant proposal.

Some Universities, as noted, do offer their own support for new academics, but irrespective of funding available locally there is national funding, and also perhaps one might also look at European Funding for new researchers whilsts the window of opportunity remains open.

For an ambitious and promising researcher the position is not necessarily as pessimistic as you might feel.