APECS Webinars

Preparing a successful fellowship application is a skill. Often, lack of success with applications is not due to a poor research idea but comes down to the inability to express clearly and confidently, in writing, your research to someone else. Everyone’s writing skills can be improved and be made more effective. This mentoring activity is designed to help early career persons with developing their fellowship proposal writing skills. It is particularly meant for young researchers in countries with a small or just developing Antarctic research community that may not have adequate mentoring in their home institutions. The need for such mentoring arose after review of the many hundreds of SCAR and COMNAP Fellowship applications received over the past several years. Funding is limited and so reviewers often need to make difficult choices. Success or failure often depends on whether the proposal is written clearly and efficiency. After the success of the first training webinar held in 2016 (recording available here vimeo.com/165109392), SCAR, COMNAP and APECS partnered again to hold a similar training webinar, but this time in Spanish . Writing about research can be difficult, writing in your second (or third) language poses yet another set of challenges. This webinar hopes to provide additional tips and tricks for writing applications in English for Spanish speakers. The webinar was held on 15 March 2017 at 13:00 GMT Background: The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) initiated the SCAR Fellowship Programme in 2002. The aim was to encourage the active involvement of early career scientists in Antarctic scientific research and to build new connections and further strengthen international capacity and cooperation in Antarctic research. Since the initiation of the programme, 48 SCAR Fellowships have been awarded. In 2011, the Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs (COMNAP) launched the COMNAP Antarctic Research Fellowship Scheme, offering one fellowship per year for an early career person in order to carry out research within a COMNAP National Antarctic Program. To date, there have been 10 COMNAP Antarctic Fellowships awarded. In addition, there have been four joint SCAR-COMNAP Fellowships awarded since 2012. This year, the COMNAP Antarctic Fellowships will change their focus, from purely research-based fellowships to a broader opportunity based on a list of projects of direct relevance to National Antarctic Programs. The Fellowships supports the scientific goals of SCAR and the goal of COMNAP to develop and promote best practice in managing the support to Antarctic science. The Fellowships enable early career researchers to join a project team from another country, opening up new opportunities and often creating partnerships that last many years and over many Antarctic research seasons. This years fellowships opened on 1 March with an application deadline of 1 July 2017. For more information visit scar.org/awards/fellowships