The Melbourne Social Equity Institute’s Community Fellows Program 2025

September 4, 2024

Application Deadline: 21 October 2024

Applications are now open for the 2025 Melbourne Social Equity Institute’s Community Fellows Program.

Eligibility

To be eligible to participate in the Community Fellows Program, please ensure that:

Your organisation was not awarded a Community Fellowship as part of the 2023/2024 cohort. If unsure, please contact community-fellows@unimelb.edu.au.
The head of your organisation/department is supportive of your application and your possible participation in this Program.
You are an employee with valid working rights in Australia (we are unable to support volunteers).
Your organisation is a small to medium-sized community organisation (up to 199 employees).
Your organisation is incorporated and holds insurance to the value of $10 million public liability and $2 million professional indemnity insurance (this is a fairly typical level of coverage for small organisations).
You are Victorian-based and able to spend time at the University’s Parkville campus, including a three-day orientation on 12, 13 and 14 February 2025, as well as other research training and work-in-progress events throughout the year.
You can commit 200 to 350 hours work on the project (depending on its complexity) including active participation in cohort-based activities.

Benefits

Grants of $7000 are made available to the community-based organisations to compensate them for the time that Fellows spend working on their research projects.

A total of twelve Community Fellowships are expected to be offered, to commence in February. Of these twelve:

Two fellowships are funded and supported by the Melbourne Disability Institute. Projects should have a disability lens and seek to understand the matters important to people with disability and the solutions that are needed. People with disability and those from Disability Representative Organisations are strongly encouraged to apply.
Four fellowships are identified for people working in community organisations based in the Goulburn Valley.

The application process has three stages. In the first stage, individuals complete an application form via Qualtrics outlining their background, the aims of their project idea and the anticipated outcomes.
In the second stage, selected applicants are shortlisted by the Melbourne Social Equity Institute who will then work to identify an Academic Mentor for the Fellowship. The Institute’s ability to support a project is dependent upon securing a suitable academic mentor at the University of Melbourne.

In addition to general contact and organisation information you will be asked to answer the following:

Tell us about yourself and your work experience [up to 100 words]
Briefly describe the work of your organisation [up to 100 words]
Provide a short working title for your proposed research project [up to 25 words]
Describe your proposed research idea and the challenge and/or opportunity it seeks to address [up to 200 words]
How will the Community Fellows Program help you achieve your aims? What support do you require from the University (e.g. academic mentoring, access to academic resources)? [up to 100 words]
How will your organisation use the outputs / outcomes of your project? [up to 100 words]