Call for applications: Media-research collaboration fellowships for environmental reporting

Submissions of applications will only be accepted through the online submission platform: 

https://sei.submittable.com/submit/301218/mekong-thought-leadership-and-think-tanks-network-program-mtt-media-fellowship

Mekong Thought Leadership and Think Tanks Network Program (MTT), hosted by SEI Asia, is providing six media-research collaboration fellowships (media fellowships) to selected journalists in the Mekong Region. Each fellowship is worth up to AUD 5,000 (~ USD 3,300) for activities to be undertaken from October 2024 to May 2025.

The media fellowship aims to produce and publish impactful stories highlighting critical environmental sustainability issues related to the MTT program’s research activities. The media fellowships aim to support MTT’s granted projects in the Mekong Region (four flagship studies and seven rapid response projects) to better communicate our science to the public for enhanced visibility and policy impacts.

Background

The media-research collaboration fellowship seeks to enable collaboration and close interactions between MTT’s knowledge-based policy influence organizations (KBPIOs) that focus on generating or using the evidence to inform the policy and practice (e.g., think tanks, researchers, and practitioners) and those that influence the changes in society through the public (e.g., Mekong-based journalists). 

Researchers from the KBPIOs can help the media fellows to better access and understand the inclusive knowledge co-production processes and their results.

In exchange, the media fellows will guide the MTT researchers in crafting communications that resonate with non-academic audiences while conveying the importance of the scientific findings.

This way, both sides benefit and help each other equally, building a strong media-research collaboration. (Please see the previous examples of our media-research partnership here.)

Who can apply?

Six fellowships worth up to AUD 5,000 (~ USD 3,300) will be awarded to selected applicants. Applicants must be citizens of or based in the countries of the Mekong Region (Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand, and Vietnam). We encourage early-career media professionals to take advantage of this opportunity.

• Journalists (early to mid-career, freelancers* or groups of beginner journalists who wish to collaborate).

• Multimedia producers (early career) who work with photography, audio, video, and/or animation.

Early-career candidates from diverse genders, indigenous groups, people with diverse ethnicities, and persons with disabilities are especially encouraged to apply.

*Both freelance and staff journalists can apply. Freelance journalists are encouraged to provide a supporting letter of intent from an outlet or organization that will disseminate their work.

** The MTT Secretariat reserves the right to maintain a balanced portfolio of media fellowships considering required support of MTT’s program activities including granted projects, which may involve considering the countries of origin and gender diversity of the media fellows.

All applications will be handled with strict confidentiality.

Required outputs

The media fellows need to submit at least one of the following:

• Text-based stories with accompanying images: 1000–3000 words plus two or three images.
• Short films or video interviews: (6–10 minutes) with a 200-word written summary (and English subtitles if needed).
• Audio podcasts: No longer than 20 minutes with a 200-word written summary.

The outputs can be in an English language publication. The output can also be produced in Khmer, Lao, Thai, Vietnamese or other Mekong Region languages, but English translation (i.e. transcript for print and podcast or subtitles for multimedia video) must be provided.

The media fellows are expected to also participate in their in-country MTT events (such as knowledge exchange or policy workshops), visit MTT project field sites, participate in one MTT regional forum, and support MTT communications activities of interest.

The final stories will be presented at the Regional MTT Forum (or media workshop) around May/June 2025.

For MTT reporting purposes, we request the media fellow to provide a 1-2 page “reflection report” at the end of the fellowship with their feedback and experiences working on the media-research collaboration fund. The template for the reflection report will be provided.

Publishing of the stories and reporting

The applicants must propose where their stories (or multimedia) will be published, indicating the name of the respective website or news outlet. All stories (whether published in an external outlet or not) will be republished with the required permissions on the SEI and SUMERNET websites.

Contact

For more information on the media collaboration fund or MTT, please contact Rajesh Daniel (rajesh.daniel@sei.org) or Variya Plungwatana (variya.plungwatana@sei.org).

ATTACHMENTS

1. MTT Media-research collaboration fellowship details (pdf)

2. MTT List of flagship projects (pdf)

3. MTT List of rapid response projects (pdf)