InterRidge Student and Postdoctoral Fellowships - Call for Proposals 2010

Call for proposals:
InterRidge Student and Postdoctoral Fellowship Program 2010
http://www.interridge.org/fellowship
All application materials are to be submitted electronically to the InterRidge Coordinator (coordinator@interridge.org) by 31 March 2010

The relocated InterRidge Office at NOC, Southampton, is pleased to continue the delivery of the Student and Postdoctoral Fellowship Program. As part of InterRidge’s mission to promote international, collaborative, and interdisciplinary studies of oceanic spreading centers, we invite proposals for InterRidge Student and Postdoctoral Fellowships of up to $5000 US each. These new Fellowships are designed to encourage international collaboration on any aspect of ridge-crest science by graduate students or postdoctoral researchers, fostering long-standing partnerships for their future careers. These Fellowships can be used for any field of ridge-crest science. In particular these awards are encouraged to be used for international cruise participation, international laboratory use, and adding an international dimension to the Fellow’s research.

We expect to offer a total of four Fellowships in 2010. One of the Fellowships, funded by InterRidge, is open to a graduate student or postdoc from any nation. The remaining three Fellowships are funded by the International Seabed Authority (ISA) Endowment Fund, with the requirement that the graduate student or postdoc is either from a developing country or will assist in training those of a developing country. The ISA Endowment Fund is a new program for collaborative marine scientific research, with details and brochure available at:http://www.isa.org.jm/en/efund/. The mission of the ISA Endowment Fund is to support the participation of qualified scientists and technical personnel from developing countries in marine research activities and to provide opportunities for collaboration by these persons. For more information on the partnership with the ISA for the InterRidge Student and Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, please see: http://www.interridge.org/isapartnership

To read about previous InterRidge Student Fellows, please see:
2008 

2009

Required Application Materials (all necessary forms can be found at the end of this page):

ALL applications:
InterRidge Fellowship Application Form (IR_Fellow_App_Form_2010) which includes:
- application summary
- proposal
- curriculum vitae (submit as a separate attachment)
- budget and justification of required funds
- recommendation letters from the applicant’s advisor and proposed host sponsor.

Applicants wishing to be considered by the ISA Endowment Fund must complete ADDITIONAL documents to the above:

-ISA Endowment Fund Application Form  (This form is a Microsoft Word document. Please contact the InterRidge Coordinator if you need this form in a different format or file type).

- any additional CV’s for developing country personnel.

Amount and Duration of Fellowship
The amount awarded to each successful applicant will be determined based on the project needs and is up to $5000 US per Fellowship. The Fellowship must be used within 2 years (24 months) from the date the Fellowship is awarded.

Proposal and Application Review
Research proposals will be reviewed for scientific merit by two topic-relevant reviewers, one a native- and the other a non-native English speaker. Depending on the number of applications received, each InterRidge Steering Committee Member will review all or a subset of applications (including proposal reviews). All applications will then be ranked together, based on several factors ranging from the quality and expected significance of the work to the Fellowship providing an opportunity that the applicant is otherwise not likely to experience.

For the one Fellowship to be funded by InterRidge, final selection will be made by the InterRidge Steering Committee. For the applications to be considered for the three Fellowships to be funded by the ISA Endowment Fund, the InterRidge Steering Committee will provide the highest-ranked of these applications to the ISA Endowment Fund Advisory Panel for final selection. All successful Fellows will be announced on 17 June 2010.

Award Reporting Requirements
IR Fellows will be featured on our website (for example, see:http://www.interridge.org/fellowship/2008) and in the annual InterRidge News (http://www.interridge.org/IRNewsletter). Fellows will be required to submit one interim progress report and one final report upon completion of the Fellowship. Note: Fellowships supported by the ISA Endowment Fund will also require a final report from the applicant’s advisor. In addition, four years after the award, InterRidge will request feedback from awardees to provide an assessment of longer-term impacts of the Fellowship.

Summary of application forms to be sent to the IR Coordinator:

Thank you, and good luck!
If you have questions, please contact Debbie Milton (coordinator@interridge.org)