Deadline: 29 May 2020
The Earth Leadership Program invites mid career academic environmental scientists from North America (Canada, Mexico, and the United States) to apply for the 2021 Earth Leadership Fellowships.
The program provides researchers with the skills, approaches, and theoretical frameworks for catalyzing change to address the world’s most pressing sustainability challenges.
The program prepares researchers to work together as effective agents of change by providing tools and perspectives to help participants cross traditional disciplinary and sector boundaries. Collaborating with other researchers as well as networks of stakeholders is critical when addressing complex sustainability challenges.
The fellowship training model is built around this collaborative approach that values co-designing with diverse stakeholders. In this model, a leader mobilizes a group to action by working with the group toward a shared vision. This involves navigating conflict through an iterative process that enables people to serve in their most effective operational roles. Knowledge alone is not the mark of growth, but rather self-awareness and reflection on learning.
The outcomes of the training are geared toward tools that enable groups to self-organize and transform systems in a networked way, rather than simply improving personal skills or preparing faculty to become higher education administrators.
Through a competitive process, the program selects up to 20 Fellows annually to participate in two intensive training sessions a year apart to build and enhance their skills for leading change from local to global scales. The goal of this program is to create a community of engaged scientific leaders who link their knowledge to decision-making about the environment and sustainability.
The 2021 training schedule is:
- Initial session: June 13 – 19, 2021
- Practice year: Fellows practice new skills over the course of the academic year in context at their home institutions, with the support of webinars and conference calls with peers and mentors.
- Final session: June 12 – 15, 2022
What’s the training experience?
- The program addresses a series of leadership questions and helps Fellows build on their individual experience and competencies. The learning is both facilitated and self-directed, and as concepts, tools, and strategies are presented, participants are provided time to practice and get feedback. Fellows are engaged from morning to evening, balancing the day between highly interactive sessions and reflective activities such as journal writing or one-on-one debriefing conversations. Time is set aside at the end of each afternoon for Fellows to take a walk or run, challenge one another to a pick-up game of basketball or croquet, or take part in other unstructured activities. Evening sessions provide time for further exchange and may include case studies from alumni Fellows and other invited guests.
- In the year between their training sessions, Fellows practice new skills at their home institutions or in other venues to learn what works and what doesn’t in furthering their vision for change. Activities may include:
- Interviewing for information to fill gaps in their network needed for fulfilling their vision for change;
- Incorporating what they’ve learned into their work teaching and mentoring students and postdocs; and
- Expanding their skills in facilitating interdisciplinary groups.
- Fellows are on the leading edge of developing the practices that are needed for complex problem-solving; they are, in many ways, critical resources to each other. As a network, the Fellows provide powerful ongoing support to each other. During the practice year they organize periodic check-ins in pairs or small groups to remind themselves of the short-and long-term goals they set for themselves in their action plans. Fellows are expected to manage their time in order to engage fully in learning from their practice.
- The following June, the Fellows reconvene in a final session to report back, integrate their learning from the practice year, and articulate to each other their refined vision for linking knowledge to action. An outcome of the experience is that Fellows are better able to decide where, when, and how to engage for the greatest impact in furthering their vision for change. After their fellowship year, Fellows are expected to:
- Build on what they’ve learned to create a positive impact on decision-making about the environment and sustainability;
- Share with their graduate students the skills learned in the course of the fellowship and mentor students and others in their de development as leaders; and
- Contribute to the sustainability of the Earth Leadership Program by providing ongoing feedback, sharing best practices, and serving as coaches and mentors to other Fellows.
Areas of Focus
- Individual leadership development: This component focuses on deepening awareness of leadership style, identifying areas for growth and development, and creating sustaining practices.
- Assess personal leadership type and qualities;
- Articulate a vision of what matters identify and clarify purpose.
- Gain confidence by articulating a leadership plan with a set of practices.
- Facilitating collaboration and networking: These sessions build capacity to engage a group of people, enabling them to think together.
- Learn frameworks and models for effective working-group collaboration and dialogue
- Interviewing for information to fill gaps in their network needed for fulfilling their vision for change;
- Build capacity for working effectively with stakeholder partners as well as graduate students and colleagues;
- Practice design and leading participatory group conversations;
- Develop the art of reciprocity and relationship-building;
- Experience an on-going support group where each individual feels safe to share learning.
- Understanding systems: This component supports the program’s goal of making an impact by inspiring innovative, creative, collaborative transdisciplinary research projects.
- Diagnose and design four layers of a system: action, structure, tone, and identity.
- Learn systems thinking tools: actor and trend mapping
- Apply systems design framework to a specific sustainability challenge.
Funding Information
The Earth Leadership program will fund all expenses for the two intensive training sessions for each fellow by merging the financial support that have already secured with a contribution of $9,000 for each fellow from their home institution. This may be allocated over the two years of the program (2021 and 2022), so would amount to $4,500 per year from each institution.
Target Audience
- The Earth Leadership Program seeks candidates from a broad range of disciplines including the biological, physical, and social sciences, and technical, medical, and engineering fields related to the environment and sustainability. “Science,” “scientist,” and “scientific” in these guidelines refer to the full range of these disciplines.
- The program serves academic environmental and sustainability scientists working in public and private academic and research institutions of various sizes in Canada, Mexico, and the United States. It targets mid-career researchers (typically mid 30s to early 50s in age) whose contributions to science and leadership in addressing pressing environmental / sustainability issues will be significantly enhanced by receiving a Fellowship.
- The program does not accept applicants at the graduate or post-doctoral level. Individuals who work for government, NGOs, museums, and corporations are also ineligible for the training program. Academic scientists with fewer than five years of experience since earning a Ph.D. and more than a year until tenure review are encouraged to apply in the future, although applications from exceptional early career candidates may be considered.
Eligibility Criteria
Applicants from a wide range of disciplines are encouraged. All must possess:
- A tenured or tenure-track faculty position;
- An active role in research and teaching in an area of environmental and sustainability science at a Canadian, Mexican, or U.S.-based institution of higher education or research;
- A reputation for outstanding science;
- Interest, willingness, and an appropriate professional position to synthesize, interpret, and communicate the results of their work, connect scientific knowledge and decision-making, and engage with stakeholders on solving sustainability challenges;
- Passion and capacity to exercise leadership;
- Commitment to participate in all the activities of the yearlong Fellowship, including both training sessions and the practice year in between;
- Intent to share what is learned in the training program with students, colleagues, and other stakeholders through courses, workshops, and other outreach efforts; and
- Desire to remain an active member of the Earth Leadership Network after the conclusion of the fellowship year and assist other Fellows as mentors and coaches.
Selection Process
A Selection Jury of 12 to 18 members drawn from the program’s Advisory Board, alumni of the Leopold Leadership Program and others reviews the applications and selects new Fellows, using the selection criteria.To ensure an objective evaluation with no actual or possible perceived conflicts of interest in the review process, no Selection Jury member is assigned to review a Fellowship candidate in any of the following categories:
- The applicant is a current or former employee or employer, a relative, or an employee of an organization for which the Selection Jury member serves on the board;
- The applicant is a co-author, research associate, or otherwise a collaborator on professional work; or
- The applicant has any other significant ties to the reviewer, including financial.
For more information, visit https://glp.earth/news-events/news/call-applications-earth-leadership-program