Scholarship Description: Applications are invited for postdoctoral applications for the Liber Ero Fellowship Program. This Fellowship program supports exceptional postdoctoral fellows who address pressing conservation challenges of relevance to Canada.
The Program aims to develop the next generation of conservation scientists, trained in the latest methods and in the skills necessary to affect policy and improve conservation of Canada’s wild places and natural resources.
Applicants whose first language is not English are usually required to provide evidence of proficiency in English at the higher level required by the University.
Degree Level: Fellowship is available to pursue postdoctoral programme.
Available Subject: The Liber Ero post-doctoral fellowship program seeks to support exceptional early-career scientists to conduct and communicate research that informs applied conservation and management issues relevant to Canada.
Scholarship Benefits: The fellowship will consist of 2 years of support (the second year contingent upon satisfactory progress) with a $60,000/yr stipend and a $15,000 annual travel and research budget.
Eligibility: The following criteria must be met in order for applicants to be eligible for the scholarship:
Eligible scholars will be exceptional natural or social science researchers, who have received their PhD prior to the start of the fellowship. Applicants should propose to be based at a Canadian academic or conservation institution, but researchers from any country are eligible for consideration. Applicants will identify a mentorship team of at least one academic and at least one conservation practitioner mentor. Applicants are encouraged to identify the mentor team early in their proposal to foster a meaningful collaboration.
Eligible Nationalities: Applicants of all nationalities are eligible to apply for this fellowship programme.
Application Procedure: Accordingly, the application consists of the following major components. First, register your application, then compile the following as a PDF:
- Cover letter (maximum of one page) – Only a short cover letter is requested, which should not repeat information in the application. Rather, it should be a synthesis and tell us more about yourself and your goals.
- Research proposal (maximum of four pages) – The proposal is freeform and can be structured as most appropriate, but it must include:
- Conservation problem: A successful application must clearly define a conservation problem in Canada that will be tackled and how the fellowship will contribute to solving the problem.
- Methods: A section (minimum one page) outlining the methods and approaches to be used, indicating any novel approaches to be developed.
- Mentorship: A section clarifying how the applicant and the mentorship team plan to work together to affect real-world change regarding the stated conservation problem.
- Impact: A section must describe the potential impact of the proposed research, specifying the communities most likely to benefit from the results.
- References: Additional page(s) for literature cited may be included beyond the four-page limit.
- A statement highlighting past accomplishments demonstrating the candidate’s commitment to conservation science, outreach, and collaborations (maximum of 500 words).
- Copy of the applicant’s CV, listing relevant publications, grants, and experiences.
- Letters of support from proposed academic and conservation practitioner mentors, a minimum of two. In cases where there are multiple academic mentors, a joint letter is encouraged, when possible (ditto for cases involving multiple conservation practitioner mentors).
- Letters of support from two academic references.
All of the material should be submitted via e-mail as a single PDF (please name your file using this format: Lastname_Firstname_Nov2017.pdf); the letters from academic references should be sent directly.
Deadline: Fellowship application deadline is November 1, 2017.