Translations available:
French
German
Korean
InterRidge Student and Postdoctoral Fellowship Program: Announcement of partnership with ISA Endowment Fund for 2012 - 2014
We are very pleased to announce our continued partnership with the International Seabed Authority (ISA) Endowment Fund for the InterRidge Student and Postdoctoral Fellowship Program. The ISA Endowment Fund is a 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. The ISA Endowment Fund will provide funding for three InterRidge Student and Postdoctoral Fellowships each year for the next three years (2012 - 2014). At $5000 US for each Fellowship, our grant totals $45,000 US, and it reflects important progress in our long-term goal of soliciting external grants to strengthen InterRidge activities and promote international cooperation.
The InterRidge Next Decade Plan includes capacity building, or strengthening contacts to the less industrialized or non-coastal nations, heightening the appreciation that the world’s oceans are relevant to the lives of all the peoples on Earth. For our next generation of ridge-crest scientists, InterRidge would like to enable individuals from developing countries to participate in research cruises and to obtain training in laboratory techniques for ridge-crest research. As quoted from the ISA website, “In many cases, financial costs to conduct marine scientific research in the deep seabed have prohibited the involvement of developing nation scientists and other personnel. Lack of technology and expertise in a field that remains on the cutting edge of science may have also contributed to fewer researchers from developing countries being involved in deep-sea research initiatives. As a global resource, scientific study in the international seabed area should include, wherever possible, scientists and researchers from both developing and developed countries.”
We expect to offer a number of Fellowships each year for 2012 - 2014 at the level of $5000 US for each Fellowship. Fellowships funded by InterRidge are open to graduate students or postdocs from any nation. Two Fellowships per year are funded by the 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. All Fellowships will have the same application form, and all proposals will undergo the same rigorous scientific review by InterRidge. Applicants will check a box and add a statement with regard to benefits to scientists of developing countries if they would like to be considered for an ISA-funded Fellowship. Ranking of the applications will be based on several factors ranging from the quality and expected significance of the science to the fellowship providing an opportunity that the student is otherwise not likely to experience. Our annual Newsletter will have a special section for Fellows to report their progress during the two-year grant period and how the Fellowship aided their career four years after receiving the award. The call for proposals for 2012 Fellows will be released in January 2012 on the IR website, and proposals will be due 31 March 2012.
