The International Relations Office (IRO) is pleased to announce that the 2025/26 Global Chair Scheme is now open and welcomes nominations of prestigious international researchers. For this year's call, two Global Chairs will be selected for an appointment of two years (from September 2025 to September 2027).

The Scheme provides support for internationally leading scholars to join Bath as international visiting professors to strengthen the university's international connections and foster excellence, success, and significant outcomes through global partnerships.

Global excellence with impact is a strategic priority of the University and the Global Chair Scheme contributes to this aim through fostering high-level academic exchanges, connecting world-class research expertise with highly ranked international institutions, driving research quality, achievement and impact through collaborative projects with top global scholars. It also provides opportunities for early career researchers and PhD students to broaden their research horizons. By facilitating these international connections and collaborations, the Global Chair Scheme strives to significantly enhance the University's research profile and global academic standing.

The University's current Global Chairs are Prof. Steven Farber, Professor of Biology at Johns Hopkins University, and Prof. Scott Kelso, the Glenwood and Martha Creech Eminent Scholar Chair in Science and Professor in the Department of Psychology at Florida Atlantic University. Prof. Francesca Aweeka, one of Bath's 2023/24 Global Chairs, from the University of California, San Francisco, collaborated with Prof. Richard Guy and Prof. Stephen Ward in the Department of Life Sciences. This partnership yielded significant research outcomes, including a virtual Transatlantic Research Symposium, joint efforts in regulatory science, aging, big data, and clinical pharmacology, and a synergistic alliance between UCSF and Bath researchers on antimalarial resistance. It also continues to create opportunities for UCSF and Bath students to gain international pharmacy practice experience.

Similar to the 2024/25 Global Chair Scheme call, there is a focus on nominees from top-200 QS ranked institutions, individuals whose research aligns with one of the University's research pillars and research collaborations with the potential to feed into the University's REF 2029 submission.

Nominations must be submitted by 10 March 2025 via the Microsoft application form. All nominators should review the Global Chair Scheme 2024/25 guidelines and eligibility criteria before submitting their application.

Deadlines

The IRO encourage nominators to discuss their proposal with the Director of their Institute or Associate Dean International, as well as the Partnerships Team in the IRO, ahead of the deadline. Please contact internationalfunding@bath.ac.uk.