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National nomination process for fellows

Ablauf des nationalen Nominierungsverfahrens der Bundesregierung im Rahmen der IPBES-Nominierungsaufrufe für Fellows.

About the IPBES Fellowship Programme

The IPBES Fellowship Programme offers early career individuals from academia and practice a unique opportunity to participate in an IPBES assessment and to work in an international team of experts.

According to IPBES procedures, early career individuals should be at an early stage of their career, i.e. no older than 35 years of age and should have graduated from university no more than five to seven years ago. Fellows selected by IPBES are assigned a mentor (senior expert of the assessment) to support them in their work on an assessment chapter.
Fellows nominated by Germany and selected in the subsequent international procedure are supported administratively and procedurally by the German IPBES Coordination Office over the assessment period of several years. In addition, participation in obligatory meetings during the assessment process (e.g. authors' meetings and IPBES training workshops for Fellows) will be financially supported on an as-needed basis, provided no other funding options are available. The number of Fellows funded by the German Government per assessment is limited.

Further information on the programme can be found here.


The following points present the procedure for Government nomination of Fellows by Germany:

  1. The IPBES International Secretariat and the IPBES Technical Support Unit for Capacity-building invite governments and organisations to nominate fellows for an assessment  (call for nomination of fellows). This call also sets out the assessment-related selection criteria for Fellows. The notification also refers to the general selection criteria of the IPBES Fellowship Programme.[1]
  2. Immediately afterwards, the Federal Ministries for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUV) and for Education and Research (BMBF) call on national early career individuals or those working in Germany to submit expressions of interest to the German IPBES Coordination Office.
  3. The national deadline for submitting expressions of interest to the German IPBES Coordination Office is a few weeks before the international application deadline.
  4. All expressions of interest received in due time will be reviewed by the independent, national ad hoc  advisory committee on behalf of the Federal Ministries. The members of the multidisciplinary committee represent institutions and networks from science, industry and civil society, which are both familiar with the IPBES processes and able to assess the suitability of the applicants on the basis of the selection criteria due to their professional background. Candidates are selected on the basis of scientific qualifications and individual competence.
  5. The national ad hoc committee then submits the selected candidates to BMUV and BMBF and recommends their nomination by the federal Government.
  6. The early career individuals nominated by the Government are informed by the German IPBES Coordination Office and invited to register for the international nomination process via the IPBES online portal before the international deadline.
  7. The final selection of Fellows for an assessment is made by the Management Committee of the respective IPBES assessment. Regional and gender balance will also be considered in this selection process. 
     

 

[1] The general selection criteria used by IPBES for any assessment,  are also  taken into account in the national nomination process. They include the following aspects: Candidates should be in the early stages of their career, expected to be no older than 35 years of age and preferably no more than five to seven years after having completed their academic degree. Applicants should have expertise in one or more disciplines in the natural sciences, social sciences, or humanities, or expertise in indigenous and local knowledge systems, and/or be policy expert or a practitioner. In addition, applicants should have an excellent command of  speaking, reading and writing skills in English, strong research and analytical skills in dealing with complex issues, and a demonstrated ability to deal with material from multiple disciplines and write concise texts that accurately reflect the information in the literature,  meet deadlines, and have demonstrated ability to interact and work with people from other disciplines.  Applicants should also have access to a reliable internet connection at their home institution and free access to email and worldwide web resources.