The Government Office for Science offers UK Intelligence Community (IC) Postdoctoral Research Fellowships to outstanding early career science or engineering researchers. These Fellowships are designed to promote unclassified basic research in areas of interest to the intelligence, security and defence communities. 

The National Protective Security Authority, Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, Home Office, the National Cyber Security Centre, and UK National Authority for Counter-Eavesdropping are among the organisations represented in the UK Intelligence Community for this scheme.

One round of applications is held annually. Each year members of the IC identify research topics and the Research Fellows work locally with their University Research Advisor to develop and submit research proposals that align with the topics.

The research is conducted by the Research Fellows while working in partnership with the University Research Advisor and collaborating with an advisor from the Intelligence Community (IC Advisor).

The Research Fellowships are aimed at early-career researchers from all branches of science and engineering who have up to five years postdoctoral experience. Only citizens of Australia, Canada, the EEA, New Zealand, Switzerland, the UK or the US can apply. 

There are several IC research topics which may be of interest to policing academics: 

• Novel S&T solutions for unexpected loss of Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) capabilities
• Machine learning trained fingerprinting of the near field measurement
• Utilizing a modern mobile to provide a level of TSCM capability
• Utility of synthetically generated data for training or testing AI/ML systems
• Improved spatial resolution for optical surveillance using distributed apertures
• Aging of fingermarks. Can fingermark deposition time be determined from crime scenes/objects? 
• Can obscured biometric markers be detected from crime scenes/objects with skin barriers in place?
• Autonomous AI-powered red teaming for enhanced cybersecurity
• Advanced processing for real-time RF mapping
• Using AI to power synthetic biology applications  

Each application for the UK IC Postdoctoral Research Fellowships is capped at a maximum contribution of £250,000 over the 2-year period, at 80% of the full economic costs (fEC).   

Click here for more information, and to apply to the scheme.