Category: Announcement

# Early Career Researchers Applying to Participate in the project #

Invitation to Early Career Researchers to participate in Farming for Climate Justice

Are you interested in building your network of peers and mentors on transdisciplinary and action research for climate justice?  We invite early career researchers (ECRs) from South Africa and the UK, from academia and civil society organisations to join a cohort of 40 early career researchers in this 10-month process from May 2021 to March 2022. Together, we will:

• Participate in a series of online workshops (a total of 16 hours over 6 mornings & evenings)
• Collaborate on the development of research proposals, and
• Receive mentoring and engage in peer-to-peer-learning on project design and development.

Successful proposals by ECR collaborations will then:

• Win Challenge Prize funding to undertake research activities (up to £10,000)
• Receive mentoring for project implementation and reporting, and
• Have an opportunity to participate in training on communicating research using different media (podcasting, brief writing, animation).

Applications for participation in Farming for Justice opens March 1^st and closes May 3rd 2021 – see criteria for ECR applicants here.

Researcher Links Workshops – information for ECRs

Six workshops (totalling 18 hours) will take place over three months (May-July) in 3-hour sessions delivered in the mornings and evenings to optimise accessibility.

The purpose of the workshops is to develop an interdisciplinary network of ECRs in South Africa (SA) and UK specialising in food and farming systems transformation in an era of acute climate uncertainty. Forty ECRs from academic institutions and civil society organisations in the UK and SA are invited, through an open process, to participate in a series of online workshops.

These are designed to focus on 3 key themes (resilience & adaptation, nature and financing) and contribute research outputs to COP26. Workshops aim to build research skills, facilitate networking, and to prepare ECRs to develop collaborative proposals to be presented and evaluated by a panel.

The process provides an opportunity to bridge different ‘ways of knowing’ and engage with deliberative consensus-forming processes across disciplinary perspectives.With a focus on re-orientating financing for agroecological transitions to stimulate adaptation and resilience through nature-based farming solutions, workshops link closely with the SDGs. As climate change, food systems, seed, soil and water, gender and political ecology specialists we will promote critical ECR collaborations between natural and social scientists, drawn from both academia and civil society networks across urban and rural spaces.

Challenge Prize Research Projects & Mentorship

Mentored by specialists within the project team, an anticipated four successful projects will be awarded a Challenge Prize to conduct transdisciplinary research over a period of six months. This research will then be translated and communicated into various forms of accessible media.

The Challenge Prizes will facilitate the co-production of research with vulnerable, small-scale producers and other food system actors in SA inhabiting some of the most fragile landscapes exposed to acute water scarcity, soil erosion and land pressures, who are at the forefront of grassroots initiatives that respond to climate change impacts on food and farming systems. Our focus emphasises the co-generation of socially inclusive research capable of collectively restoring ecosystem functions and building adaptive capacities for climate resilient food & farming.

NOTE: In anticipation of ongoing COVID-19 restrictions, and with the climate costs of UK>SA travel, ECRs will be expected to work creatively and divide their work packages. While having joint responsibility for conceptualisation, analysis and Challenge project reporting, UK ECRs may be expected to undertake desktop research on policy drivers; while SA ECRs undertake COVID-compliant fieldwork on their impacts (ie. on natural resources, landscapes and livelihoods), using video or other tools to share ie. focus group discussions, interviews and field observations with UK colleagues.

Mentored by specialists within the project team, an anticipated four successful projects will be awarded a Challenge Prize to conduct transdisciplinary research over a period of six months. This research will then be translated and communicated into various forms of accessible media.