A third of Warwick University's new research fellowships have been given to rising stars at Oxford and Cambridge.

Warwick, which launched its ambitious Pounds 10 million research fellowship competition last year, has appointed 36 fellows in 21 disciplines. Twelve currently hold posts in Oxford and Cambridge - six from each - and 16 have either studied or taught at Oxbridge. The nine fellowships in engineering, physics, economics, classics and English have been awarded exclusively to Oxbridge academics. There will also be Oxbridge academics in history, the history of art and psychology.

One English fellowship has been given to Peter Wilson, currently a prize fellow at Oxford's elite graduate college, All Souls. The other has been claimed by Catherine Bates, who is director of studies at Peterhouse in Cambridge. The engineering fellowships have been taken by research fellows at Cambridge's top-rated department. In history, the two fellowships have gone to a present and a previous research fellow at Girton College Cambridge.

The research fellowships, which attracted 10,000 enquiries and 2,000 formal applications, have also been given to candidates from prestigious foreign institutions, including Berkeley, Virginia, Melbourne and L'institute Hautes Etudes Scientifique in Paris. The international fellows come from Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Holland, India, Israel, Russia and the United States.

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Sir Brian Follett, vice chancellor of Warwick, said: "Six years of research security at one of the United Kingdom's top research institutions has certainly proved an attractive offer."

After six years, the research fellows may be appointed to readerships. This is especially attractive for academics at Oxford and Cambridge, where such senior positions are few.

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Warwick is looking to stage a mini-competition next year, possibly to capture another 13 fellows and bring the total up to 50 as originally planned.