We are pleased to launch the third round of the GEM Report Fellowship programme, which started in 2019, thanks to the support of the Open Society Foundations. The GEM Report Fellowship Programme supports researchers who aim to bring a fresh perspective to comparative and international education. It offers an opportunity to be part of a select group of researchers and scholars who are advancing knowledge in this field, while working with the GEM Report team.

The call for proposals for the 2021 GEM Report Fellowship is now open: applications should be received by December 15. The Fellowships will be expected to start on 1 March 2020.

Since starting in 2019, seven researchers have been awarded GEM Report fellowships. Each produces a background paper that is either linked to a forthcoming GEM report and its theme or to other projects that support the Report’s objectives. The outputs may also include other deliverables, ranging from databases and programmes to materials to communicate the findings and help reach out to policy makers at the national, regional or global level. Each fellowship lasts between 6 and 11 months. Fellows receive a stipend and are allocated a mentor from within the GEM Report team.

Four were GEM Report fellows in 2019, of which three contributed content to feed into the 2020 GEM Report on inclusion: Madhuri Agarwal on grade retention policies in India, Gabriel Bădescu on collaboration skills among secondary school students in upper-middle- and high-income countries, and Enrique Valencia-Lopez on measuring ethnicity in surveys in Latin America. Danny Baum’s work on early childhood education touches on the role of early childhood education provision by non-state actors, the focus of the 2021/2 GEM Report due out next year.

This is also the focus of two fellows from the 2020 round who are currently finalizing their work. Elizabeth Buckner is working on non-state tertiary education and Wei Zhang on private supplementary tutoring. The third fellow from the 2020 round, Nicolas Buchbinder, is looking at ICT in education in Latin America – technology in education is the theme of the 2023 GEM Report.

The 2021 GEM Fellowship now open will be looking for up to five new fellows to join the programme. Their work may also feed into the 2023 GEM Report on technology but we are inviting any good proposal on comparative and international education that is in the spirit of the report.

More information, including how to apply and the selection procedure, are available here.