ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP

YAE opens a call for an Environmental fellowship program on a competitive basis to enhance the young researchers’ capacity and develop evidence for policy-based advocacy for sustainable environment management in Nepal.

For the last few decades, Nepal is facing a number of environmental issues, including air and water pollution, loss of biodiversity and ecological services, solid waste problems, sedimentation, climate-induced disasters, and so on. Haphazard urbanization, overexploitation of resources, and poor governance mechanism are the root causes of environmental degradation. For instance, the urban centers of Nepal is often been listed as the most polluted cities in the world in the aspect of air pollution since the last few years, likewise, overexploitation and extraction of river bed materials of aggregates is completely disturbing the river ecosystem, the haphazard development activities are hampering the biodiversity and many more.

The environmental issues are tremendously increasing day by day. In regard, the Constitution of Nepal, 2015 clearly outlines the right to live in a healthy and safe environment as a fundamental right for all citizens. The government of Nepal (GoN) has made several provisions through policy and legislative measures and various economic instruments including formulation of Environmental Protection Act, 2019, Environment Protection Regulation 2020, Climate Change Policy, 2019, and been a signatory of various environmental treaties for minimization and managing contemporary environmental issues. However, due to the weak institutional mechanism, lack of planning, and implementation of the required actions, Nepal still struggles to overcome these obstacles.

Environment issues must be mainstreamed in plans, programs, and policies in different tiers of government for environmental sustainability. To consider it, there is a need to understand and explore the gaps and issues in environmental management for evidence-based advocacy. Therefore, the Fellowship will be awarded to fellows in exploring and developing research outputs on the environmental sector based on their diverse perspectives, eventually expecting to foster environmental management in Nepal.

EVALUATION PROCEDURE 

The fellowship will be awarded on a competitive basis based on the quality of the proposals. Proposals would be evaluated on the basis of research quality, research relevance, clarity in methodology, practicability, scientific importance, and implication for evidence-based policy.

TIMELINE

  • Call Opens: 21 November 2021
  • Deadline for Submissions: 15 December 2021

DURATION OF RESEARCH

One Year (Candidates must complete research within six months and next six months are allocated for the development of Research Paper)

GRANT AMOUNT: NPR 1,50,000

The grant would be provided in three installments.

  • 40% after signing the contract and acceptance of detailed research plan
  • 40% after submission of the draft report
  • 20% after acceptance in a peer-reviewed journal

ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

  • Applicants must have completed a Master’s degree in Environmental Science, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Management, Forestry, NRM, and other relevant fields.
  • Should have experience in research design and technical writing
  • Should be Nepalese citizen

APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS

  1. A research proposal in a given format (section of the proposal outline)
  2. A cover letter (no more than 1 page) justifying why you should receive the fellowship
  3.  CV mentioning all the qualifications, experiences, and publications (if any)

APPLICATION PROCESS 

Please email the proposal along with the cover letter and CV (either in a PDF or Word format) to info.yae@gmail.com

PROPOSAL OUTLINE

The proposal should be no more than 10 pages and should be in Times New Roman font with single spacing and font size of 12. It should include the following information:

  • Introduction
    • Background
    • Problem Statement
    • Research Questions
    • Hypothesis/hypotheses
    • Research Objectives
  • Literature Review
  • Conceptual Framework
  • Research Methodology
    • Site Description
    • Data collection methods
    • Statistical Analyses (if any)
    • Any models to be used (if any)
  • Expected Results
  • Timeline
  • Budget breakdown along with justification on the use of budget
  • References

MENTORSHIP

Three professionals from the environmental sector including each from the YAE team, academia, and independent professions will mentor the project under this fellowship.

*Awardee must work closely in coordination with the YAE team.

For any queries please write an email to us at

info.yae@gmail.com

Or contact us on
+977 01 4432814