2023 Public Voices Fellowship on the Climate Crisis
After three successful years of the Public Voices Fellowship on the Climate Crisis, we are pleased to announce that we are now accepting applications for the 2023 Fellowship. This year-long experience will convene a cohort of twenty climate change thought leaders, with a focus on people with backgrounds that have been historically underrepresented in the mainstream media, and will provide extraordinary support, leadership skills and knowledge to ensure their ideas shape not only their fields, but the greatest and most urgent conversation of our age. The Public Voices Fellowship on the Climate Crisis is part of a national initiative in partnership with the OpEd Project to change who writes history.
The curriculum explores leadership, power, and action in an unfair world. Fellows will explore how credibility works, how ideas spread, when and why minds change, and how ideas play out over time and space. The goal of this project is to bring new, diverse voices into the national climate conversation, because we know that we cannot find just and sustainable solutions without them.
The program includes workshops and one-on-one coaching by leading journalists and editors. All participants must commit to publishing at least two written pieces of thought leadership (and hopefully many more) during their fellowship. Attendance at all workshops, continuously and in full, is required – applicants must save the dates and confirm their understanding of this commitment in order to apply.
Selection Process:
We are looking for new voices from civil society, academia, and the private sector, including advocates, entrepreneurs, community and business leaders, scientists, educators, and writers, among others.
We seek leaders working at the intersection of climate change, communication, and social justice, with a demonstrated desire and ability to contribute to public dialogue on climate change. Areas of focus could include activism and movement building, financial risks and opportunities of climate impacts and solutions, racial justice, local, national or global policy, climate science, sector approaches (e.g., faith, business, health), or many others.
Fellows will be chosen through a competitive selection process. We are committed to building a diverse cohort. We will consider a variety of factors, including but not limited to gender, race/ethnicity, age, geography, area of expertise, work history, and experience as an agent of change. The fellowship is open to people at least 18 years old residing in the United States.
Program Details:
- Up to 20 fellows
- Year-long program One 3-day virtual kickoff convening (May 10-12, 2023, 1-4:30pm ET each day), one in-person one-day-long session at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut with a dinner the evening before (July 27-28, 2023: dinner time on 7/27 TBD, from 10am to 5pm ET on 7/28), and two subsequent virtual workshops (October 26-27, 2023 and January 24-25, 2024, 1-4:30pm ET each day). Applicants MUST commit to and save those dates.
- Dedicated editors (top journalists) to provide regular, one-on-one support/editing/coaching
- Access to ongoing mentoring for the fellowship year.
- A limited number of travel and lodging stipends will be available for those who need them to attend the in-person convening. The workshops and coaching are provided free of charge.
The following application will ask for general personal/professional details, diversity and inclusion information and your responses to several application questions.
The application deadline is 5pm EST, Tuesday, February 14th 2023. Prior to completing this application, please do the following. We estimate that this pre-work should take an hour to complete.
- Review the session dates for the 2023 Public Voices Fellowship on the Climate Crisis cohort. If you are selected, you will be asked to commit to full attendance. (Note: A limited number of travel stipends will be available.)
- Background materials:
- Review the whole announcement here.
- What is Climate Change Communication?
- Listen to some episodes of our short daily 90-second radio story Climate Connections
- Read or watch stories at Yale Climate Connections
- Selected thought leadership by the first three cohorts of fellows