Fellowship Program

The GOARN Berlin Fellowship Program provides an opportunity for GOARN partner institutions to support the aims of the WHO Pandemic Hub in Berlin. The program is designed with a multi-sectoral focus to engage partner institutions and highly qualified people from public health, veterinary health, and environmental institutions, academia, technical networks, and non-governmental organizations, to share expertise, inspiration, and creative input to the priority activities of the WHO Pandemic Hub. In return, fellows have the opportunity to develop their capacities and ideas in an international community of world-class experts within the WHO Pandemic Hub as well as in the wider global health landscape of Berlin and Potsdam, including the Public Health Intelligence team of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI). Partners are asked to propose projects for the Hub and identify senior experts in the field of epidemic intelligence, surveillance, public health and animal health, and rapid response, and build the capacity of respective home institutions and the network. 

The fellows are actively supported in their projects by their home institutions to address priority global health challenges during their time at the WHO Pandemic Hub, and to make new connections and to develop new ideas and activities together with WHO, GOARN partner institutions, and other experts. This fellowship program aims to build the capacity of GOARN partners. Successful applicants will be working in GOARN institutions and will return to the home institution after the fellowship.

The program will host four fellows total over a 12-month period. The duration of each fellowship will be from 3-6 months depending on the projects and the nature of the work to be supported. The priority focus area of the fellowships may arise from GOARN partners, the WHO Pandemic Hub, and/or RKI. Proposals submitted by GOARN partner institutions should be supported by the institution and have a clear statement of commitment to return for the fellow to their home countries to continue in their roles and further build on the work started in Berlin. 

Funding for the fellowship projects will be provided up to 50.000 €. Separately, the costs for travel, accommodation and living allowance will be covered by the fellowship program in line with RKI policies and regulations. The program will ensure diversity and equity and will consider applications/opportunities for experts from any partner/country. The program will encourage and seek out strong applications from GOARN partners in low or middle-Income countries (LMIC). 

The program itself will be placed in and administratively supported by the WHO GOARN Collaboration Centre in RKI ZIG1 and coordinated by the ZIG Administrative Unit. 

Application Requirements*

• GOARN membership
• Proven experience in relevant fields
• English language skills
• Letter of motivation, including both personal and institutional letters of support, motivation and application
• Project proposal, including how the project relates to core institutional objectives 

Application Process

Interested candidates should submit the following documents.

• Curriculum vitae (CV) including updated information about candidates education and experience,
• Motivation letter from the candidate,
• Support letter from candidate’s home institutions (NB: institution must be a GOARN partner).
• Project description (high level overview maximum 1,000 words). Projects must be related to one of the four areas of work of the WHO Pandemic Hub, please refer to the initial message (below) for details.

Selection of GOARN Berlin Fellows

Following review of project proposals, selected fellowship applicants will be interviewed by representatives from the WHO Pandemic Hub, the WHO Collaborating Centre for GOARN at the RKI, and the GOARN Operational Support Team at WHO.

Eligibility for Application

Only experts who are affiliated with existing GOARN partner institutions are eligible to apply. Other essential requirements include (i) proven experience in relevant field and (ii) fluency in English.

Preference will be given to candidates from GOARN partner institutions based in the Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMIC).

Please send all required documents by email to goarn@who.int by 6 February 17:00 CET at the latest.  Subject line of the message should clearly state “GOARN Fellowship: Cohort #1 – Application”. Only complete applications will be considered. 

Important

For this round we are seeking applications only for the first cohort. Planned dates for this cohort are April to December 2023. Candidates should keep this timeframe in mind when submitting project proposals and their applications. 

We look forward to receiving your applications and to initiating this project.

Context

The WHO Pandemic Hub is a catalytic initiative established by WHO in 2021 with support from the German government to strengthen pandemic and epidemic intelligence by developing systems for better data, better analytics, and better decisions. It is designed to strengthen capacity and collaboration among countries, regional and global actors to avert and manage public health threats through collaborative problem solving and decision-making. It is built upon the premise that no single discipline or institution will be able to make the world better prepared for the next pandemic. Therefore, the Hub works with experts from various countries and disciplines. 

The WHO Pandemic Hub is engaging broad and diverse partnerships, including with partners of the Global Outbreak and Alert Response Network (GOARN) and the technical disciplines of alert and outbreak response, with the latest technologies, to link the data, tools and communities of practice so that actionable data and intelligence are shared for the common good.

The WHO Pandemic Hub is part of WHO’s Health Emergencies Program and is a collaboration of countries and partners worldwide, driving innovations to increase availability of key data; develop state of the art analytic tools and predictive models for risk analysis; and link communities of practice around the world. 

The WHO Pandemic Hub supports the work of public health experts and policymakers in all countries with the tools needed to forecast, detect and assess epidemic and pandemic risks so they can take rapid decisions to prevent and respond to future public health emergencies.

The WHO Pandemic Hub will work to:

• Enhance methods for access to multiple data sources vital to generating signals and insights on disease emergence, evolution, and impact.
• Develop state of the art tools to process, analyze and model data for detection, assessment and response.
• Provide WHO, our Member States, and partners with these tools to underpin better, faster decisions on how to address outbreak signals and events; and 
• Connect and catalyze institutions and networks developing disease outbreak solutions for the present and future.

This sets the tone for the institutional commitment to the project, anchors how we contribute to capacity building for the institutions, and sets the ground rules for the fellow. 

*Note

The above text is excerpted from the original source.