Applications are open

The 2025 topic is: Collaborative Leadership in the Built Environment: Building Capability in the Next Generation

Please read the full brief for this year's submission topic before applying.

The 1851 Research Fellowship in the Built Environment is intended to enable those at a more advanced stage in their career to explore important current issues, selected by the Commission.

Applications are welcomed from post-graduates, researchers, practitioners or professionals on a career break.

The Fellowship runs for two years and is funded at £50,000 pa.

Key Dates
First submissions, including a two-page outline of the proposed project, must be received by 12pm on 9 September 2025.

Shortlisted applicants will be asked to make a second submission amplifying their project proposal by 12pm on 22 October 2025.

Final interviews will be held on 26 November 2025.

Introduced in 1995, awards have been made for research into:

  • Landscape and Modernity
  • Urban Issues, Human Habitation
  • Transport and the Built Environment
  • Housing for the 21st Century
  • Climate Change – The future for Building Design
  • Urban design: Ideas for part of the Commission’s Estate
  • Towns and cities in Shock
  • Genetics and the Built Environment
  • Cycling and the Built Environment
  • Manufacturing an Inhabitable City
  • What is the High Street for? What Might the “Future High Street” be like?
  • Restoring Nature in the City
  • How can AI assist in meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goals?

Built Environment Fellows