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Essex International Visiting Fellowships

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Essex International Visiting Fellowships are prestigious, competitive awards for high performing, established researchers. This flagship programme provides support for outstanding researchers to undertake a period of research at Essex that is of major importance in its field and of significant benefit to Essex's research.

The programme provides a platform to:

Work with Essex academics on a research project or publication
Champion Essex as a centre of scholarly excellence at an international level
Raise the profile of the multi-disciplinary research community at Essex
Enrich the research and training environment for early career postgraduate and post-doctoral scholars at Essex

Resumption of Essex International Visiting Fellowship (EIVF) Scheme – 2023/24

After the suspension due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, we are delighted to announce the resumption of the Essex International Visiting Fellowship scheme for 2023/24.

The EIVF scheme will be offered to eligible researchers to undertake a fellowship with a stay of up to 10 weeks at the University of Essex.

Programme components and current availability

Essex International Visiting Fellow

This fellowship enables researchers to spend between two and ten weeks at Essex. There are two calls for applications:

1st call for 2023/24

For visiting fellowships between 1 October 2023 and 15 February 2024

Open from 22 May 2023 and close by midnight 11 August 2023 (UK Time)

2nd call for 2023/24

For visiting fellowships between 16 February 2024 and 31 July 2024

Open from 11 Sep 2023 and close by midnight 15 December 2023 (UK Time)

Eligibility

Essex International Visiting Fellowships are for researchers based outside the United Kingdom with an excellent track record commensurate with career stage to undertake research at the University of Essex.

The Essex International Visiting Fellowship scheme is open to candidates wishing to develop collaborations with Essex researchers active within the same discipline, or wishing to collaborate in a cross- or inter-disciplinary way with Essex researchers in other areas or disciplines.

Students (e.g. undergraduate students, Master’s students, PhD students, and post-doctoral students) are not eligible for the scheme.

International Visiting Fellows applications must be supported by a senior Essex academic and during their visit, it is expected that a Visiting Fellow will contribute to the wider activity at the University, engaging with a wide cross-section of our research community.

We cannot accept applications for fellowships at our Southend or Loughton Campuses. Should you wish to visit one of these campuses, please see our staff mobility information for other funding opportunities.

Successful applicants who were International Visiting Fellows in the past at Essex are not eligible to apply for another Essex International Visiting Fellowship.

Note: Fellowships which were cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic are welcome to reapply.

Please keep in mind that the International Visiting Fellowships are awarded on a competitive basis.

Benefits

An Essex International Visiting Fellowship includes:

Status of a University International Visiting Fellow
Economy airfare from the Visiting Fellow’s nominated home airport to a London-based airport and return
Accommodation in one of the University owned properties off campus in Colchester
Weekly stipend of £100 per week

Fellows will also meet, to discuss their research and plans for future activities with Essex, with university research leadership - Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research); Dean for Partnerships (Research); Faculty Dean Research.

We also encourage our visiting fellows to connect with some of our early career researchers through the Take a Fellow to lunch programme. This programme enable a group of 4 to 5 PhD students to take a fellow to lunch at the Wivenhoe House Hotel Brasserie to discuss research and careers in research and academia.

How to apply

During your stay, it is anticipated that you will contribute to a number of activities. Fellows are required to:

Be hosted by a either research group or centre or; a department or School or; one of the Universitiy’s Institutes.
Have a work plan in place prior to arrival – agreed by host researchers
Hold at least one research seminar or workshop for PGR students in the host department /centre – per month of stay
Be available for the “Take a Fellow to lunch” programme

When you apply, you should therefore identify events and activities to which you will contribute to during your stay. The programme of events should aim to incorporate some of the following:

Presentation of your core research to a targeted audience
Research and/or training event targeted at PhD students and early career scholars
Exploration of further collaborative opportunities with groups/individuals
Interdisciplinary activity aimed at an audience beyond your immediate field of specialism, eg lecture, performance, exhibition, seminar, workshop

Application process

Step 1: Create an account

To access our application form and you will need to create an account on our system.

Once you've created an account you will receive an email from our system to activate your account, after which you can log in and start completing the form. When setting your password please make sure it is a minimum of ten characters and it includes at least one capital letter, one number and one special character.

Step 2: Complete the form

The form has several sections which you are asked to mark section as complete (using the tick boxes). You must do this for each section, otherwise you will not be able to submit your application.

In addition, sections marked with an asterisk (*) are compulsory. Your application will not progress without completing these sections. The form has information circles (marked 'I') that provide help when filling out the form.

Step 3: Upload documents

Some sections of the form will ask you to upload documents to support your application. You must upload:

your abbreviated curriculum vitae (one to two A4 pages maximum)
proposal of your research activity (one to two A4 pages maximum)
letter of invite/support from a hosting department or centre at Essex – must be on official letter headed paper and signed by Head of Department or Centre / Institute Director
Passport

Please ensure the documents are in PDF or JPEG format, otherwise the form will notify you of an upload error.

Step 4: Submit

When you submit your application you will receive an email notifying you of your application being complete, and you will also have the ability to download a PDF version of your application.

Amendments

Once your application has been submitted, no more changes can be made to it. If you submit your application and it contains errors or would like to change the content of any of the sections in your application, please email internationalvisits@essex.ac.uk with your request and we will be in contact as soon as possible to allow you access to your application. Please bear in mind that you can only change sections that have been completed with the wrong information.

Contact us

If you experience any issues with the form, please contact us at internationalvisits@essex.ac.uk and we help you with any issues you might have.

Selection and timelines

Selection of Fellows

Applications to the Essex International Visiting Fellowship programme will be assessed on:

Quality of your contribution to your field commensurate with career stage, as evidenced by your curriculum vitae and the letter of support from a hosting department
Ability of the proposed programme of work to advance collaborative research activities resulting in, for example, joint publications, applications for external funding and/or enhanced global reputation
Ability of the programme of work to enrich the research environment within an individual department or across multiple departments

We welcome applications from any field of research, however, priority research themes for this programme include:

Artificial Intelligence
Climate and Sustainability
Coastal Communities
Health, Wellbeing and Ageing
Security and Resilience

Selection decisions are made by a panel, chaired by the PVC Research, and include the Dean of Partnerships (Research) and one nominee from each faculty.

Timeline

We’re going to have 2 calls from now on to July 2024. 1st call will open from 22 May 2023 and 2nd call will open from 11 Sep 2023. All applications are required to be submitted by

Midnight 11 August 2023 (UK Time) for 1st call - visits between 2 October 2023 and 9 February 2024
Midnight 15 December 2023 (UK Time) for 2nd call – visits between 19 February 2024 and 26 July 2024

Decisions for applicants for fellowships are made within three to four weeks of the deadline.

Fellows will be required to complete a report at the end of their visit. Additionally, longer-stay International Visiting Fellows (7-10 weeks) will be asked for a publication such as a journal article, conference paper, or other relevant form of research publication that has been produced during or as a result of the stay at the University of Essex and will contribute to the research community at Essex.

Fellows' profiles

The profiles of some of the past Essex International Visiting Fellows and their research topics:

Professor Abel Escriba-Folch

Area of research - Impact of security forces on civil wars

During his two weeks at the University of Essex, Professor Abel Escriba-Folch worked with a number academics from the Department of Government to carry out research for a joint project on the impact of security forces structure on the duration and outcome of civil wars. He also met with PhD students, contributed to a workshop with the Michael Nicholson Centre for Conflict and Cooperation and gave a presentation about his research on security force structure and civil wars.

Talking about his successful visit, Professor Escribà said: "My short stay at the University of Essex has allowed us to lay the groundwork for a collaborative paper. Combining our respective knowledge and expertise in different topics, we've been able to identify a relevant research question and develop some initial hypotheses. We have also merged data and run some initial tests. Tasks are now divided and we'll keep working."

Professor Greg Wright

Area of research - Health impact of trade embargo

Hailing from Radboud University, Greg Wright focused on two different research projects during his trip to the University of Essex. His primary focus was to work with Matthias Parey to research the long-term health impact of a trade embargo, which he now feels is ready to be published in a journal.

He also worked with Tianxi Wang to explore the impact of new technologies on the income distributions within occupations, and left our University having also made significant progress in this field of research.

Professor Jieling Xu

Area of research - History of Anti-Schistosomiasis campaign in the Jiangxi Province

The first International Visiting Fellow to be hosted by the Department of History, Professor Jieling Xu joined Professor Xun Zhou to curate an upcoming public exhibition on the history of Anti-Schistosomiasis Campaign in the Jiangxi Province. Professor Xu’s expertise came in useful when creating a narrative for the exhibition, and when identifying certain exhibit objects. At her home institution, East China Jiaotong University, Professor Xu teaches the Modern History of China, and the Principles of Political Economy.

Associate Professor Julian Togelius

Area of research - Video game artificial intelligence

Visiting from the New York University, Professor Julian Togelius worked with Professor Simon Lucas to develop research plans to exploit recent advances in video game artificial intelligence. Professor Togelius also presented a seminar to all first-year IGGI-PhD students and most second/third-year IGGI-PhD students to discuss developments in AI, and how games can be used as a benchmark to improve AI.

Professor Togelius and Professor Lucas share long-term plans of establishing general video game AI as the foundational basis for game-designers to tune and play-test their games.

International Visiting Fellowships queries

Email: internationalvisits@essex.ac.uk

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