AVAC: Global Advocacy for HIV Prevention is funding HIV prevention research advocacy fellowship. Emerging or mid-career community leaders and advocates involved or interested in advocacy around HIV prevention research and implementation are eligible. Researchers from low- and middle-income countries can apply for this fellowship. The Fellowship is implemented through a close collaboration between the Advocacy Fellow, the Host Organisation and AVAC. The duration of fellowship is of one year and fellowship support stipend, financial support and technical assistance, and overhead administration cost. Applicants should be notified in end of August 2013. Send your application electronically.
Study Subject(s): The fellowship is awarded in biomedical HIV prevention research and implementation activities in their countries and communities.
Course Level: This fellowship is for pursuing research programme at host organizations.
Scholarship Provider: AVAC: Global Advocacy for HIV Prevention
Scholarship can be taken at: Host Organizations
Eligibility: The Advocacy Fellowship seeks applicants who are:
- Emerging or mid-career community leaders and advocates involved or interested in advocacy around HIV prevention research and implementation.
- Individuals with some experience or education in the areas of HIV and AIDS, public health, medicine, international development, women’s rights, communications, or advocacy with key populations, such as sex workers, LGBT people and drug users.
- Based in low- and middle-income countries where biomedical HIV prevention clinical research is planned or ongoing and/or where there is current work on implementation of voluntary medical male circumcision, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), treatment as prevention (e.g., expansion of treatment coverage to serodiscordant couples, pregnant women regardless of CD4 cell count, or simply closing the treatment gap for people meeting current WHO criteria), and “combination prevention” packages that link biomedical strategies.
- Advocates can also develop proposals that seek to catalyze plans and policies in countries where little activity on these issues has happened to date.
- Specific resources noted in the appendix to identify countries where research and implementation is ongoing or planned.
- Able to collaborate with English-speaking mentors.
- Applications are encouraged from all countries where such research is ongoing or being rolled out, however the Advocacy Fellow and key staff at his/her organization must be able to communicate with AVAC staff in English. -Although it’s not required to have extensive experience in biomedical HIV prevention research, successful applicants must demonstrate awareness of and willingness to learn about ongoing biomedical prevention research and implementation in their respective countries. They must also be able to demonstrate strategic analysis of how Fellowship related activities will relate to this work.
Scholarship Open for Students of Following Countries: Low- and middle-income countries are eligible for this research fellowship.
Scholarship Description: The HIV Prevention Research Advocacy Fellowship pairs emerging leaders in advocacy and activism with existing organizations to develop and execute creative, context-specific projects focused on HIV prevention research. Fellowship projects focus primarily on advocacy around biomedical HIV prevention research (such as clinical trials of vaccines, microbicides, pre-exposure prophylaxis) or roll out of male circumcision for HIV prevention. Fellowship projects may also focus on “test and treat” or ARV treatment as prevention strategies, which are under active discussion in many contexts. Fellows receive training, financial support, and technical assistance to plan and implement a targeted one-year project within host organizations focused on HIV/AIDS.
Number of awards offered: Not Known
Duration of award (s): The Advocacy Fellowship is one year, from February 2014 to January 2015. The Fellow should also plan to spend a few days working closely with AVAC and their hosts in developing their work plans before the Fellowship year begins.
What does it cover? The Fellowship provides:
- Mentoring and capacity building in biomedical HIV prevention research advocacy from AVAC for both Advocacy Fellows and Host Organizations.
- Connect to a global network of biomedical HIV prevention research advocates including current and former Advocacy Fellows, researchers, civil society leaders and other individuals and/or organizations working in similar fields.
- Opportunities for networking and information sharing with other Advocacy Fellows and a broader community of advocates including activists, scientists, clinical trial staff and other stakeholders working in fields related to HIV prevention research and implementation.
- A small stipend and technical assistance for the selected Advocacy Fellow for the initial development of a detailed work plan (up to three days over a maximum of two months). This phase takes place before the official Fellowship year begins.
- Financial support and technical assistance from AVAC for project implementation over 12 months. This includes support for full-time commitment on a Fellowship project (see next question for more information), a modest budget for project execution and access to a discretionary fund for specific travel, infrastructure or and information technology (IT) needs. (Please note that in some very specific circumstances, Fellows can be permitted to commit less than 100% to the Fellowships. These must be raised early on in the process.) Overhead administration costs to the Host Organization to cover costs associated with hosting a Fellow.
- Overhead costs are those that are incurred by the organization to administer the grant that cannot be directly attributed to the Fellowship activity (for example, proportion of rent, phone, some personnel costs such as executive director, accounting and administrative staff time) and calculated as a percentage of the overall grant.
Selection Criteria: Not Known
Notification: Applicants will be notified whether they have advanced to the next round in End August 2013. Selected advocacy fellows will be notified on end November 2013.
How to Apply: The mode of applying is electronically.
Scholarship Application Deadline: The deadline for applications is 5th August 2013.
