Resilience Fellows

Resilience fellows participate in a diverse cohort of academic and community fellows. Candidates will need to meet either the academic or community fellowship classification requirements to be eligible for the program.

Academic Fellow

• Successful academic fellow applicants may be tenure-track or non-tenure-track professors at any level (assistant, associate or full), scholars with instructor or research appointments, or post-doctoral research associates in any discipline.

• Graduate or undergraduate students are not eligible.

• Eligible applicants may be affiliated with any department, school or research center across all Arizona State University campuses in Maricopa County.

Community Fellow

• Successful community fellow applicants may be employed by any of the following types of institutions: non-profit organization, local and regional municipality, government agency, philanthropic, non-governmental or religious entities.

• Private sector business applicants may be considered if the enterprise's primary mission relates to a proposed community resilience theme or solutions space.

• Sole proprietors or unaffiliated entrepreneurs are not eligible.

• Community partner applicants should have sufficient experience, stature or permissions in their home institution to enable substantive collaboration, whether through data exchange, access to institutional programming or relationships with beneficiaries. They should also have sufficient opportunity to implement what they learn during their fellowship at their home institution.

The only difference between community and academic fellows is the classification based on their home organization. Both types of fellows receive program benefits and will be placed in the same fellowship cohort under the general name KER fellows. 

Fellows will work in community-university pairs to complete collaborative projects. Candidates who already have a partner in mind can apply as a pair. Our team will help match candidates who applied as individuals with an appropriate partner.

A heavy emphasis is placed on the proposed project and the potential to contribute knowledge to strengthen community resilience and bridge academics, practitioners and the public. The project must focus on a topic within the FUSE framework.

Three additional criteria include: 

• The individual applicant’s potential to contribute to insights, actions or solutions related to a specific social, economic and/or environmental resilience challenge, as proposed in the application.
• The merit of a proposed idea to advance understanding on community resilience broadly and systematically.
• The possibility for innovative creation and/or use of data, including participatory methods to support the synergetic exchange of knowledge within the cohort. 

These factors are considered along with meeting the eligibility criteria for an academic or community fellow classification.

The $15,000 award for research can be used to support project needs in many ways. Examples of funding allocation for academic and community fellows is below. 

Academic – Funding support type will be determined in coordination with the department: 

• Pay for summer salary.
• Employ a research assistant for one semester.
• Cover costs of data acquisition.
• Coordinate local travel, supplies, open access publication fees or a combination of those. 

The funds are proposed by the fellow and agreed upon by their director or chair.

Community – Fellows can work with KER up to 19.5 hours per week. Their home institutions will agree to allow for a reduction in workload to accommodate the fellowship.

• Their home institution will receive up to 49% of their current salary to permit time release to the project, allowing the fellow to keep the full salary and fringe benefits of their present employer.
• Funding may also cover operating expenses for data acquisition, local travel, supplies or open access publication fees.

The 12-month program design features a six-month phase for discovery and knowledge exchange, followed by another six months for project implementation. 

• January – June: Fellows will attend weekly cohort meetings during the first six months, where they'll receive guidance from the KER Executive Director and team to develop, revise and establish driving project questions. 

• July – December: Fellows will attend monthly cohort meetings. During this period, fellows will test, refine and implement projects within the community and university. 

COVID-19 Update: The meetings' format may be in person or virtual based on university guidance and specific health-related contexts.

Fellows will produce and present three deliverables by the end of the fellowship period: 

1. An analysis of their community resilience question.
2. A creative deliverable, such as a data dashboard, an organization roadmap or a manuscript draft intended for submission to an academic journal or community practitioner white paper. 
3. Comprehensive summary submitted to KER staff that includes data, insights, outcomes and contributions for public distribution. 

• Notifications of selection – early November 2022 
• Public announcement – December 2022 
• Fellowship begins – late January 2023 
• Project implementation begins – no later than July 2023
• Project showcase – November 2023
• Fellowship ends – December 31, 2023

Request for notification of future calls for applications may be sent by email to resilience@asu.edu. Other inquiries may be addressed to Dr. Patricia Solís, Executive Director, at patricia.solis@asu.edu or Dr. Elizabeth Wentz, Director, at wentz@asu.edu.