Deadline: 31 October 2023

Applications are now open for the Early Career Scholarship Programme 2024 . Every year, o The Open Notebook offers a part-time paid fellowship programme for budding science journalists. During the course of this fellowship, fellows work with a mentor to plan, report and write articles for publication in the The Open Notebook and become part of the TONNAGE .

This ten-month programme offers fellows the opportunity to explore their professional interests and passions and hone their skills as part of a talented, supportive and diverse community of past and present fellows and mentors. This fellowship is made possible thanks to the generous support of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, which has supported this programme since 2012.

Fellowship experience

During this get-together, each fellow will present, report and write four articles for publication in The Open Notebook - a mix of "story behind the story" interviews and features. They will have weekly phone or video meetings with a mentor who is an experienced science journalist and who will help them shape story ideas, provide reporting and writing guidance, edit drafts of fellows' articles and offer general advice and guidance on craft and career development. Typically, fellows' articles go through several rounds of substantive editing. As each article nears completion, fellows are also responsible for annotating their articles for fact-checking and for collecting demographic data on their sources as part of our ongoing effort to track source diversity. Fellows and mentors also participate in a Slack discussion group made up of other current and former fellowship participants and TON editors.

During the fellowship, fellows will be responsible for participating in basic cohort activities in the fellowship's Slack community. Membership of this community will continue after the fellowship ends. Note: Although part-time, this fellowship requires a significant weekly time commitment, and balancing the fellowship with a full-time job can be challenging. Potential fellows who work full-time are welcome to apply, but should carefully consider whether they will be able to devote sufficient time to completing the articles as specified in the fellowship description. This includes setting aside time to conduct phone or video interviews with sources, weekly meetings with mentors, several rounds of editing and proofreading for most stories, participating in conversations in the Slack community. The scholarship period is from 11 March to 11 January. They are flexible in making schedule changes after the fellowships begin to accommodate major professional and life events.

Stipend

• A scholarship of US$ 6,000 is available.

Eligibility

Open to budding science journalists with less than three years' regular professional experience in science writing.

• Internships and student work do not count towards this requirement.
• Exceptions to this requirement can be made for cases where the candidate has more than three years' professional experience in scientific writing, but  part or all of the experience is not in English .
• Some training and/or experience in writing for the general public is a requirement for this scholarship.
• International applicants are welcome. However, applications, including writing samples and letters of recommendation, must be in English. Materials translated into English from another language are acceptable.

Selection criteria

Priority will be given to candidates who demonstrate:

• A strong intention to work primarily as a professional science journalist. (Note: This scholarship is intended for people whose main objective is to do  journalism as opposed to other forms of scientific communication).
• Some training and/or experience in writing about science for the general public (does not need to be extensive)
• Some understanding of the science journalism profession, the challenges that science journalists typically face and the ways in which you would like to grow as a science journalist
• Ability to generate good ideas for stories suitable for  The Open Notebook
• Strong writing skills
  • If English is not your first language, we take this into account and do not expect a perfect essay. However, for a successful experience on this scholarship, you should have a fairly high level of English proficiency.

Application

The application form for this scholarship includes the following:

• Answers to questions about:
  • Why you are interested in this scholarship and what you hope to learn
  • Your previous training and/or experience in writing science stories for the general public
  • Any specific skills, interests or perspectives you would bring to this fellowship
  • Your general plans for the scholarship period (for example, will you be simultaneously completing a dissertation? Working as a freelancer? Looking for a full-time job somewhere? Doing something else?) 
• Short proposals for two articles TONNAGE or multimedia stories that you think would be suitable for publication on the  The Open Notebook . This could take the form of interviews with writers behind the scenes of the story; reported features on some element of the art of science writing; roundtable discussions; or some other feature-length creative project centred on the art of science writing. (These are not large-scale sales arguments.)
• A CV or résumé
• A letter of reference. This can be from a teacher, editor, mentor, supervisor or other colleague - whoever you think can best talk about your skills and qualities related to science journalism and this fellowship experience.
• Up to two writing or multimedia samples of work intended for the general public (not scientific/academic writing). If you're sharing audio or multimedia clips, just put the URLs of the work in a PDF to upload to this section. (Samples must be in English. Translated materials are acceptable.)
• Optional: additional information about yourself. They strongly encouraged writers from all kinds of backgrounds to apply. If you are a member of any group or community that has historically been marginalised or under-represented in US journalism, they invite you to let us know. This is entirely optional, and any information you disclose will be kept confidential.

Click here to register

For more information, visit The Open Notebook.