NATURA Early-Career Fellowship
About the Program
The NATURA Early-Career Fellowship Program is a paid 6 or 15-week opportunity for research and networking at collaborating network institutions (click here for participating locations. Please note that locations are not restricted to the those listed, but can be arranged by agreement between the applicant and potential host). Early Career Fellowships applicants can also apply to work with one of NATURA’s Thematic Working Groups, however proposals must directly support the objectives of the TWG. The goal of the fellowship program is to 1) Provide opportunities for students, early-career academics, and practitioners to explore nature-based solutions for urban resilience by spending time in residence with other networks; 2) Support greater depth of analysis or synthesis by extending time of interaction; 3) Support practitioner-researcher interactions through exchanges among worldwide networks.
Please Note: US National Science Foundation requirements will not permit activities that do not include a US-based institution or network (i.e., fellowships involving, for example, two European networks). The NATURA review committee can only consider applications that propose an exchange involving a US-based network (either a US-based fellow or a US-based host) to ensure compliance.
2025 NATURA Fellowship timeline:
Monday, April 15, 2024 ➔ deadline for new networks/projects to become Fellowship Hosts
Monday, April 29, 2024 ➔ deadline for Fellow to make contact with desired Host
Monday, June 10, 2024 ➔ deadline to submit NATURA Fellowship applications/proposals
Host a Early-Career Fellowship
Host and support a student, early-career academic, or practitioner at your Institution or site (virtually) who is interested in nature-based solutions for urban resilience. If interested, please fill out the quick survey by clicking the button below, and help us identify potential funding to support non-US early-career researchers or practitioners to participate in exchanges.
Apply to be a Fellow
Program Details
What’s included in the Fellowship? NATURA can contribute up to $1,500 for travel costs, $500/week for lodging, and $200/week for meals during the time of your exchange. If through your budgeting you find that your trip will require more funding, you must find this funding through personal means or through your home or host institution. Graduate Students will be awarded a stipend of $500 per week in addition to covering the costs of lodging, meals and travel. Stipends for other non-Graduate Students or Postdoctoral Fellows can be negotiated individually with NATURA on a case by case basis. Please note that stipend checks will not be disbursed weekly. For 6 week fellowships you can expect 1-2 checks and for 15 week fellowships you can expect 3-4 checks. NATURA expects to fund two 6-week and two 15-week learning exchanges per year for graduate students and/or postdocs, and two 6-week Fellowships for early-career faculty and/or professionals.
What’s expected of Fellows? Fellows should plan for specific, concrete products or outcomes, which might include but are not limited to: blog posts or summary papers, podcasts, academic publications or presentations, focused reports, webinar or live presentations based on their work with the host network (view the expected outputs here). Fellows will also become members of the NATURA Early-Career Network, and serve as ambassadors for the further development of the Early-Career Fellowship program.
Virtual Fellowship: NATURA will consider applications for virtual fellowships if the coronavirus pandemic restricts travel.
Deadline: Applications are due by EOD (your local time) Monday, June 10 2024
Application Process
Applicants should identify and contact a host mentor--either from the NATURA Host Mentor List or by making direct contact with a potential mentor who is part of a NATURA network, or the lead of a Thematic Working Group. With the host mentor, applicants should develop a three-page proposal for the Fellowship. Proposals should include:
description of work to be accomplished in Learning Exchange, including primary research question or practical application, specific objectives of the work, and research approach or implementation plan;
description of how proposed Fellowship builds upon applicants’ existing work;
how the Fellowship will help applicants to meet their career goals;
location and length of stay (6 or 15 weeks) for Early-Career Fellowship, and why it’s appropriate to meet the goals;
applicants’ current and past activities associated with their network and/or with NATURA;
expected outputs and/or products, plans for outreach, and timeline for the work
Applications should also include (1) a letter of commitment from the host network, identifying primary mentor or collaborator and the space and resources available to support the exchange; (2) a letter of support from current advisor (grad students) or supervisor (postdocs, practitioners) or department chair (early-career faculty) indicating that applicant is a member of the network and is able to spend the designated time away from school/work, and (3) applicants’ CV/Resume.
Eligibility
Who may apply? This program is intended for advanced graduate students, post-doctoral scholars, and early career faculty and professionals (i.e., pre-tenure or < five years since terminal degree, respectively). Fellows selected for learning exchanges supported by NATURA must be based in the United States or involve a United States-based network affiliated with NATURA by way of membership (see networks page for more information). NATURA encourages potential fellows to create a budget for their fellowship based on the funds that NATURA will contribute (please see above section on Program Details). If through budget planning you find that you will need more support, please reach out to your home or host institution.
Other criteria: Fellows must be associated with a network that is a member of NATURA, and should be working on or interested in learning about nature-based solutions (NBS) in urban areas. Fellows must also agree to be a member of the NATURA Early-Career Network.
Application Review
Proposals will be reviewed by the Coordinating Committee approximately twice per year. Selection criteria will be based on the six components of the proposal and commitment to the Fellowship by the Host Network.
Fellowship Application package
Cover page form with applicant and host information
Early-Career Fellowship proposal (3 page)
Letter of commitment from host mentor
Letter of support from current advisor (grad students) or supervisor (postdocs, practitioners) or department chair (early-career faculty)
Applicants’ CV / Resume
Please email the following documents to natura.net21@gmail.com
Past Fellows
Mariana Hernández Montilla
Mariana Hernández Montilla worked with Marcus Collier (Connecting Nature Network) in spring 2022 for 15 weeks (March-June 2022). She conducted a systematic review to explore risk and opportunities for transformative urban adaptation in the Global South, focusing on the use of nature-based solutions in participatory planning processes.
Pablo Arturo López Guijosa
Pablo Arturo López Guijosa worked with Jennifer Rae Pierce of the Urban Biodiversity Hub. During his six-week fellowship in spring 2022, he worked with the Global to Local TWG, taking a lead in completing the first draft of the policy brief they produced.
Katinka Wijsman
Assembling Coasts: Climate Change, Resilience, and the Politics of Belonging
A fellowship with Dr. Niki Frantzeskaki at the University of Utrecht, Netherlands.
Laura Costadone
Analysis of social environmental justice on blue-green space access using social media data in a Mediterranean small island state
The implementation of nature-based solution (NbS), defined as actions to sustainably manage and restore ecosystems, is a key priority to improve livelihoods, address societal challenges and mitigate climate crisis1. The adoption and implementation of NbS is, however, often still limited due to resistance among stakeholders or institutional and cultural barriers2. Examining routes to improve the uptake of NbS is critical to successfully addressing multiple societal challenges. A better assessment of beneficiary preferences, in terms of ecosystem services and benefits, could help in overcoming these barriers and be used as a powerful justification for the implementation of NbS. Information on where, how and why people interact with nature could help distinguish which ecosystem services or aspects of the environment are of public interest3 and should be prioritized in restoration and conservation efforts through the implementation of NbS.
Laura Costadone is a PhD student in the Department of Environmental Science and Management at Portland State University, US.
Melissa Ingaruca Moreno
Transformative Potential of Urban Nature-Based Solutions (NBS)
This project seeks to develop a SETS-based theoretical framework to assess the potential of urban NBS innovations to radically transform the modernist urban design regime and create pathways towards “good Anthropocenes”. How can we assess the transformative potential of urban NBS innovations taking into account a SETS approach? What are radical worldviews (and constituent paradigms) that challenge undesirable SETS relationships of the modernist urban design regime and offer alternative SETS relationships for the knowledge production and material production of urban NBS? The project will also apply the theoretical framework of SETS-based transformative potential to identify radical innovations of knowledge production of NBS that engage with emerging cognitive technologies (AI, XR, sensors).
Melissa Ingaruca Moreno is a design-led urban researcher applying socio-ecological science to study urban transformations.
Clair Cooper
Investigating the role of social media data in the evaluation of relationship between nature-based solutions and health
Despite numerous studies documenting considerable health benefits from greenspace provided by nature-based solutions (NBS), knowledge of pathways that directly link the two remain contested due to the lack of causal evidence (Van Berg et al.,2015). A recent paper by Dumitru et al., (2020) suggests a lack of studies has led to claims about the impacts of NBS on health may be over emphasised or generalised based on the analysis of a limited number of case studies. To further our understanding of the relationship between different types of NBS and health outcomes, natural experiments that examine the causal nature of relationships between the quantity and quality of different types of NBS, general and specific health outcomes are needed for different population groups at a smaller scale such as neighbourhood district. The objective of this learning exchange is to work in collaboration with researchers at the Urban Systems Lab to pilot an approach to ascertain if social media data that relates to public health can be used as a proxy for health outcome indicators, and to establish if there is a relationship between different types of NBS and health outcomes within cities.
Clair Cooper is a PhD student in the Department of Geography at Durham University, UK.