BES Policy Fellowship

The BES policy team works with public bodies across the UK to offer fellowships to ecologists looking to expand their knowledge and experience of policy. This year we are working with Natural Resources Wales (NRW).

The BES-NRW Policy Fellowship offers an ecologist the chance to complete a placement embedded within the statutory adviser to the Welsh Government on the natural environment, applying their scientific expertise to a practical policy challenge. The Fellow will work on the application of regenerative agriculture in Wales, with a particular focus on no-till agriculture.

The Fellowship will provide a prestigious opportunity for BES members to gain first-hand experience, improving their policy knowledge and awareness, developing their science communication skills, and building their professional networks at an exciting and crucial time for environmental policy.

The Fellowship will also help to foster wider links between the ecological and policy communities, and support policy development informed by outstanding science.

Topic

The Fellow will work on the application of regenerative agriculture in Wales, and particularly on no-till methods.

They will contribute to some or all of the following tasks:

• Synthesise the evidence base for the benefits and disbenefits
• Use a systems approach to map the benefits and disbenefits (and dynamics/feedback loops) of no-till agriculture for different parties
• Report on the investment needed to switch from till to no-till agriculture
• Produce user specific outputs to communicate the evidence to groups including policy makers, landowners, farmers and NGOs.
• Gather a set of case studies of no-till farms that share similarities with the Welsh agricultural environment.
• Provide a worked example of how organisations like NRW can use the CEEDER database to inform decision making on the topic of the effectiveness of no-till agriculture.

Funding

A maximum of £20,000 is available from the BES to support the Fellowship. Applicants are asked to specify and justify the amount of funding requested and how it would be spent.

Eligibility

Applications to the BES Policy Fellowship will be open to BES members who are affiliated to a Welsh institution and have two or more years’ research experience post-PhD. The Fellowship is only open to those who have UK Citizenship or an existing visa to work in the UK for the duration of the Fellowship. A full job description, in English and Cymraeg, is available under the Applications Process heading below.

Duration

The Fellowship will begin in December, with the exact start date to be agreed between the host, the Fellow, and the Fellow’s home institution. The Fellowship can be full-time or part-time, with the precise duration and working arrangements of the placement to be determined between the host, the Fellow and the Fellow’s home institution.

Applications Process

Job Description – English

Swydd Ddisgrifiad – Cymraeg

Applications should be made via the online flexigrant portal on the BES website. Questions are listed in English only, but answers can be submitted in English or Cymraeg.

Flexigrant – Apply here

Register/log into our online flexigrant system, complete your contact details, and navigate to ‘Your Applications’.

Alongside the application form in the portal, candidates will be asked to provide:

• A CV
• A letter of support from the Head of Department/School at the applicant’s home institution indicating that they agree to the applicant taking time away from their normal duties to complete the Fellowship according to the requirements and conditions set out above
• An equality and diversity monitoring form

Applications have been extended by a week and will now close 9am Monday 24 October

Interviews will take place in the week commencing 31 October