University of Liverpool’s Prosper cohort 2026 has begun!

Today we had the pleasure of holding the induction session for our new cohort. The aim of the session is to get the cohort off to the best start, ensuring shared understanding of what we can expect from each other. It’s a great opportunity to start building the community connections that will help sustain and empower the postdocs through their career development journey. 

We got participants to consider what things may hold them back from engaging as fully as they’d like, challenged them to consider possible solutions and asked them to share their hopes for the 6-months of the cohort. 

Hopes included; 

• an increased sense of clarity or career options or what their next career steps may be, 
• growth in confidence,  
• better understanding of their own priorities, 
• learning new skills and getting clarity on the ones they have and how these fit with employability,  
• staying motivated 
• meeting inspiring people, making new friends, connecting as a postdoc community.

We selected a cohort of 30 postdocs through our tried and tested competitive process. Diversity targets have remained the same as for our previous cohorts, see cohort 2025 for example. 

The cohort makeup across the three broad disciplinary areas is; 

• Biomedical and Biological Sciences – 40% of the cohort (52% of the wider UoL postdoc population) 
• Physical and Environmental Sciences and Engineering – 27% of the cohort (40% of the wider UoL postdoc population) 
• Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences – 33% of the cohort (8% of the wider UoL postdoc population) 

We met our target of a minimum of 20% of the cohort from each disciplinary area. The proportion of applications we received was greatest from Biomedical and Biological Sciences (38%) > Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (31%) = Physical and Environmental Sciences and Engineering (31%). This is an improvement in terms of the proportion of applications from Physical and Environmental Sciences and Engineering, which we had sought to increase from the previous (2025) cohort. 

The cohort is 63% female, 33% male, 3% prefer not to say, compared to the 43% female, 57% male makeup of University of Liverpool postdoc population. 

We did not meet our 50/50 female/male gender representation, with females being overrepresented. This is a similar gender split as we had for our 2025 cohort (57% female, 43% male) and 2024 cohort (57% female, 40% male, 3% preferring not to say). 

The further breakdown by disciplinary area is;

• Biomedical and Biological Sciences: 
  Target: 50% female, 50% male 
  Cohort makeup: 58% female, 42% male 
• Physical and Environmental Sciences and Engineering: 
  Target: 30% female, 70% male 
  Cohort makeup: 38% female, 50% male 
• Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences 
  Target: 60% female, 40% male 
  Cohort makeup: 90% female, 10% male 

We met our target of a minimum of 25% BAME representation within the cohort. 

• BAME – 33% of the cohort (28% of the wider UoL postdoc population) 
• White – 67% of the cohort (53% of the wider UoL postdoc population) 
• Information refused – 0% (1% of the wider UoL postdoc population) 
• Not known: 0% (18% of the wider UoL postdoc population)