WCS Research Fellowship Program

July 28, 2010

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Research fellowship administered by the Wildlife Conservation Society Institute in Wildlife Conversation

Job Description: The WCS Research Fellowship Program (RFP) is a small grants program that is designed to build capacity for the next generation of conservationists by supporting individual field research projects that have a clear application to the conservation of threatened wildlife and wild places.

The RFP helps train applied conservation scientists from developing countries. Since the RFP’s establishment in 1993, over 2,000 proposals totaling over $23 million have been submitted to WCS for funding, of which 300 proposals totaling more than $3 million have been funded. Over 60% of the total funded proposals have come from national conservationists (citizens of the country in which they are conducting their research). All grantees are graduate-level students pursuing masters, doctoral, or veterinary degrees (or equivalents). Collectively, these professionals will help to apply field-tested conservation science to the challenges facing conservation today

Are you Eligible?
This year the Wildlife Conservation Society is happy to offer WCS Research Fellowship Program grants to applicants meeting the following criteria:

Project eligibility:
1. The research project should focus on addressing a conservation issue (and/or answering a research question) relevant to one or a combination of the following:
1. WCS’s 74 priority land/seascapes
2. WCS Global Priority Species
3. WCS Recovery Species
4. WCS Global Conservation Challenges

2. Project should have direct relevance to the conservation objective of categories above and to improving conservation management. Projects that do not serve to answer questions and solve problems (i.e., projects that simply aim to provide more information on a site or species) will be given low priority.

3. Projects should only be one year in duration. If a highly eligible project is longer, a one-year portion of it must be delineated for RFP support.

4. While most RFP project research will be conducted in countries where WCS works, the program will accept applications for work at one of WCS’s Living Institutions in New York City (Bronx Zoo, Central Park Zoo, Queens Zoo, Prospect Park Zoo, New York Aquarium) if both the applicant and the project focus meet the eligibility requirements.

5. Restrictions: RFP awards are for direct support of research activities, but can not be used for the following:
1. Conference attendance
2. Expeditions
3. Travel to scientific meetings
4. Legal actions
5. Construction of permanent field stations
6. Tuition expenses
7. Salary for PI (While salaries for PIs are not supported, PIs who have no other source of support may request modest per-diem expenses. Salary for field assistants is acceptable.)
8. Overhead costs
9. Costly laboratory analyses
10. Gene storage
11. Vehicle purchases
12. Computer purchases
13. Captive breeding (except in projects directly working on Recovery Species)

6. Proposals may be submitted simultaneously to other funding organizations but WCS must be informed of the organization, the amount requested, and status. (See Section 3A on the application form.) Please be sure to clearly indicate in your budget which component you request WCS to fund and which is requested from other organizations (Section 3B on application form).

Applicant eligibility:
1. Applicants must currently be enrolled in a Masters, PhD, or DVM program, or the equivalent. 2. Applicants must be citizens of developing countries (i.e., any country not defined as a “high income economy” by the World Bank at http://data.worldbank.org/about/country-classifications/country-and-lending-groups). An exception is made for applicants who are Native American (US) or First Nations, Métis, or Inuit (Canada).
3. Applicants can not be current WCS employees. However, seasonal WCS employees are eligible if enrolled in academic institutions and not working for WCS for the duration of the project.
4. Applicants must not have received a WCS RFP grant in the past.
5. Organizations or teams are not eligible for WCS RFP funding. If you are interested in applying for a grant as part of a team, please visit the Conservation Leadership Programme website.
6. There must be only one Principal Investigator (PI) listed on the application. Faculty and/or research advisors should not be listed as the PI.

Before you apply, we strongly recommend that you send a one-paragraph summary of your intended proposal to fellowship@wcs.org for review and feedback. Please be sure to include the topic of your study (species, place, challenge)
Application Deadline: January 5 2011

Further Fellowship Information and Application

Scholarship Tags: ResearchFellowship, Wildlife Conservation