GO-GN Fellowships

The GO-GN Fellowship scheme has been designed for three years (2020-2022) to foster connections to other networks, promotion of GO-GN at strategic events and incorporating the outputs of the GO-GN Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) project to encourage applications from the Global South. The motivation for this fellowship scheme is to provide formal recognition of members after they have formally finished their doctoral studies to become an alumnus of the Network in the format of a post-doctoral scholarship. The Fellowship scheme which provides visibility and recognition in return for specific contributions to the Network. This presents a means by which alumni can stay involved and share their expertise with the members.

The GO-GN Fellowship scheme builds on what has worked well previously in recruiting researchers but expands upon this, providing a means to keep alumni involved and recognise their input. That provides a way of expanding support and increasing the reputation of the Network. The deployment of the DEI project in parallel allows us to increment the understanding of DEI and reach of the GO-GN Network. The Fellowship scheme is a competitive process open to GO-GN alumni (within three years after completing their doctorate) and members on their last year of PhD to apply for, reviewed by a group of experts from the Network as well as the Open University team.

Benefits for members include a financial award. Fellowships can be based around a specific piece of relevant research. With the possibility to attend conferences for the promotion of the network using the financial award given. But always receiving GO-GN support to research advice and organisation regional online seminars.

You can find more information abut the selection process and criteria:

GO-GN fellowship programme is open for submissions (first cohort call)

First Cohort

Johanna Funk: This fellowship offers structure and support to continue my post doc research plans, with application to systematically inform larger pedagogical reviews and innovation both in the University and other organisations across my existing networks that want to recover from COVID and online learning pivots with a sense of cultural capability. Using criteria and general information available from students and staff, I will create a developmental Evaluation of learning and OEP in core Humanities Curriculum units. This can identify the best ways to parcel OEP into foundational curriculum and unit learning design and have it impact students in a whole-of-university approach. This enables some humanities-based skills to be embedded via OEP in units which students across the university will take and enable them to apply it to their field of study specifically.

Read Johanna’s blogs post about her project at:

Judith Pete: In my new role as the Regional Coordinator to Service Learning project at our university, I have an opportunity to interact and connect with many students, faculty and researchers in different capacities at different universities within African region and beyond. With such an opportunity, I would wish to promote GO-GN at different levels in my interaction with the proposed 20 universities in Africa and eventually to the world. This will involve interactions in seminars and conferences (after Covid-19) and through online events under my coordination. From the DEI-project suggestions, a project which I coordinated, I am aware of some of the barriers to candidates willing to join the network. I can use that background to turn around the approach to various candidates from the region and recruit them to the network.

Read Judith’s blog posts about her project at:

Chrissi Nerantzi: I would love to combine my passion for open education, creativity and storytelling and create a collaborative open picture book about open education to be shared across the world and raise awareness of the values of open education to the next generation and their families and careers. I would like us to explore their potential to spread the benefits of open education for all through creating an open collaborative picture book about open education that can be used by individuals and groups to raise awareness and responsibility about open education and the benefits it can bring to create a better future for all.

Read Chrissi’s blog posts about her project at:

Virginia Rodés: Schools in Uruguay were in a privileged situation to face the pandemic, due to the investment in infrastructure and national capacities made in the last 15 years. Although Uruguay has no laws, recommendations or approved national policies regarding Open Education, there are ongoing policy design initiatives that lay the groundwork for their realization in the near future, and there is also a number of national OER repositories oriented to K12 education. During the COVID19 pivot, this repository showed an increase in the use and adoption by K12 teachers. The Fellowship proposal is aimed at investigating the experiences of teachers from two public primary schools in Uruguay in relation to the creation, use and reuse of OER and national repositories during the COVID19 emergency, identifying the drivers that led to an increase in the adoption in this particular scenario.

Read Virginia’s blog posts about her project at:

These Fellowships exemplify the diversity of election from the scheme, with two of them (Johanna and Virginia) being proposals that continue with their doctoral research, one focused on the network expansion in the Global South (Judith). Finally, a different approach from the original options of election such as developing an OER output through community co-creation (Chrissi). You can find more information about the first cohort and the presentation of their research proposals at the “meet the fellows session”:

Meet our first GO-GN fellows!
October 2020 Mini Seminar: Part I Meet the Fellows