Exeter University has launched a recruitment drive to fill up to 30 posts on a new £100 million campus near Falmouth.
Backed by European Union Objective One funding, the campus is a Combined Universities in Cornwall initiative, involving Exeter and University College Falmouth - supported by links with Plymouth University and colleges in the region.
Steve Smith, Exeter's vice-chancellor, said staff who took up posts would benefit from being able to apply for additional research funding from the EU and a Cornish research fund. Scientists there have already attracted an extra £5 million in EU research grants in the past year.
The university is investing £25 million in the second phase of campus development to double student numbers to about 1,600. The 18 posts it is now hoping to fill, advertised in this week's Times Higher , are in history, politics, human geography, English and law. Another wave of appointments in the same disciplines will follow early next year.
Professor Smith said the university was looking for academics with strong research track records or who showed potential, and who were excited about helping to build a new department.
He said: "We are looking for people who are good researchers, but we take very seriously the equal opportunities aspects of the research assessment exercise, so we are happy to consider people who are at an early stage in their career who have the capacity to get lots of publications under their belt."