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Join the ASAP Fellowship: Be a Fellow of Global Justice!

The ASAP Fellowship is a unique opportunity for emerging scholars and activists to work alongside leading experts in the fight against global poverty and strengthening democracy. Through a combination of mentorship, research collaboration, and networking opportunities, the ASAP Fellowship is designed to equip you with the expertise and insights needed to effect tangible positive change in the world.

What You’ll Gain:

One-to-one mentorship from renowned scholars and practitioners in the field of global justice.
The chance to collaborate on cutting-edge research and development or civic projects that address pressing poverty or democracy issues.
Participation in the annual Yale Global Justice Conference, where you can connect with leading thinkers and policymakers from around the world.
Publication opportunities in Journal ASAP, a leading academic journal focused on poverty studies.
Access to the ASAP network of alumni and partners.

Eligibility:

Applicants must be emerging scholars or activists with a strong commitment to social justice and making democracy work.
Master’s degree or equivalent is required / Outstanding ideas and projects are to be considered outside the requirements of academic degrees, from candidates from low income countries.
Fluency in English is required.

How to Apply:

Submit your CV and a concept paper (no more than two pages) to Mihai at mihai@academicsstand.org , outlining your research and/or development interests (ongoing work or any novel program/research are welcomed).
Applications will be reviewed by a committee of ASAP experts.
Shortlisted candidates will be invited to submit a 2 minute elevator pitch type of video clip, with the idea / project of focus for this fellowship and why they should be selected in the ASAP fellowship program.
The ultimate roster of fellows will be shared with the international board of trustees that confirmed the participation as mentors, and each member will express their interest in engaging in individual discussions with the fellows.

Deadline: January 26th, 2024

Frequently Asked Questions:

What are the research themes of the ASAP Fellowship?

The ASAP Fellowship welcomes applications related to research as well as civic and development programs addressing diverse facets of global poverty. It places special emphasis on themes such as social protection, economic inequality, climate change, human rights, and efforts aimed at fortifying democracy. Aspiring fellows are encouraged to explore innovative projects and initiatives within these overarching areas, fostering a comprehensive approach to combating poverty on a global scale.

What is the time commitment for the ASAP Fellowship?

The ASAP Fellowship, spanning one year, necessitates occasional online engagement. It functions as a supportive ecosystem, aiding selected fellows in honing and expanding their ideas/programs. Active individual participation is crucial in the fellowship program. Fellows are anticipated to engage in frequent meetings with mentors, collaborate on research endeavors, and partake in the ASAP Conference, Yale Global Justice Program seminars, or contribute to the Journal ASAP.

What are the financial benefits of the ASAP Fellowship?

The ASAP Fellowship does not provide a stipend and does not require physical presence.

What are the career benefits of the ASAP Fellowship?

Structured as an inventive and interdisciplinary initiative, the ASAP Fellowship engages distinguished academics as mentors, providing participants with a distinct advantage in both the academic and professional realms. Fellows will acquire valuable research and professional skills, establish robust connections, and enjoy the prospect of showcasing their work through publication in ASAP’s academic journal, and also refining and growing their ideas for a more significant impact. This program is designed to enhance your overall competitiveness and open doors to opportunities in academia and the job market.

Terms and Conditions:

Applicants must be at least 18 years old.
Fellows are required to complete all program requirements, including attending meetings, participating in research projects, and presenting their work at the annual ASAP Conference.
Fellows are expected to uphold the highest standards of academic integrity and professional conduct.

We encourage you to spread the word among your networks and nominate promising young scholars to join us in this exciting journey!

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2023 Thoughts from ASAP President

For the ninth consecutive year, hunger and poverty have intensified in 2023. The FAO records a 50% increase in the number of food insecure people during 2014-23 and now considers 40% of the human population unable to afford a healthy diet. The media blame conflict, weather, and local corruption, mostly disregarding transnational structural factors that fuel those drivers of poverty and greatly aggravate their effects. ASAP and the Yale Global Justice Program made these deeper causes the focus of our 2023 annual conference Structural Change, whose video recordings are appearing here.

2023 Amartya Sen Essay Winners & AGAPE Report

At the conference, the three winners of the Tenth Annual Sen Essay Prizes: Bilal Moin, Chad Osorio, and Alexander Jacobs – chosen from among 25 entries and honored in partnership with Global Financial Integrity – presented their work related to illicit cross-border flows of money and goods. Srilakshmi Vajrakarur delivered a progress report on the projects in India that had received Ambedkar Grants for Advancing Poverty Eradication in the inaugural year of this new AGAPE initiative.

2023 ASAP Awards

In addition, we inaugurated three new annual ASAP Awards: Henry Shue was honored with the ASAP Lifetime Achievement Award for his lifelong work on poverty, rights, and climate. Darrell Moellendorf won the ASAP Book Award Monograph of the Year for his Mobilizing Hope: Climate Change and Global Poverty. Kayleigh Garthwaite, Ruth Patrick, Maddy Power, and Rosalie Warnock received the ASAP Book Award Anthology of the Year for their COVID-19 Collaborations: Researching Poverty and Low- Income Family Life during the Pandemic.

2023 Poverty and Migration Webinar

ASAP hosted a transformative Poverty and Migration Webinar, an illuminating event that convened distinguished experts such as Dr. Teresita Cruz Del Rosario, Dr. Nita Mishra, Dr. Catherine Wihtol de Wenden, and Dr. Joseph A. Yaro. Del Rosario explored migration as a poverty-alleviation strategy, while Mishra highlighted education’s role. Wihtol de Wenden analyzed structural factors in international migration, and Yaro provided a thought-provoking discussion on migrants’ journeys from poverty to opportunity. This enriching webinar exemplifies ASAP’s commitment to deepening understanding and fostering actionable insights on global issues.

ASAP Fellowship & ASAP Journal

Additionally, led by Board Member Mihai Lupu, we inaugurated a new ASAP Fellows program that will offer young poverty-focused scholars, predominantly from lower-income countries, the opportunity of structured mentorship by members of ASAP’s Board and Advisory Board. Led by Board Member Michal Apollo, Journal ASAP published its third volume with the three essays that won the ninth annual Amartya Sen Essay Prize competition plus a comment on the African Union’s new membership in the G20, which ASAP has helped mobilize support for. A special issue on food security in Africa is also in progress.

The T20 is an international network of think tanks developing ideas for the G20. During India’s G20 Presidency last year, our Indian partner RIS, led by Yale Global Justice Fellow Sachin Chaturvedi, played a lead role in the T20, enabling us to contribute several policy papers: proposing AU membership in the G20, an Ubuntu Health Impact Fund, a UN Parliamentary Assembly, and an Ecological Impact Fund. Collaborating with partners in Brazil, we seek to build on this momentum during Brazil’s G20 Presidency, which President Lula has devoted to the fight against the institutional causes of poverty, hunger, and inequality. One opportunity here is a T20 side event we are organizing on March 11, 2024, at Brazil’s Supreme Court on the

invitation of its President: Minister Luís Roberto Barroso. In view of the AU’s new G20 membership and the coming G20 Presidency of South Africa in 2025, we will continue to foreground African needs and voices.

Academics Stand Against Poverty is still more wish than reality. But if even just one in a thousand scholars and educators were actively to join us, we would stand a real chance to achieve at least that small shift in the global distribution needed to end the more severe forms of poverty. A joint effort against severe poverty can also bring people and nations together, build mutual trust and respect, and set humanity on a path toward resolving our differences without resorting to the kind of horrific violence that the past year has brought

Thank you for being among the few.

Dr. Thomas Pogge

AWARDSUncategorized

ASAP Book Awards

ASAP Awards

Journal ASAP, in partnership with Academics Stand Against Poverty and the Yale University Global Justice Program, is conferring three annual awards for poverty-focused academic work, with the next nomination deadline being 31 July 2024:

An ASAP Lifetime Achievement Award for constructive work related to poverty.

An ASAP Book of the Year Award for the best book on a poverty-related subject, published in 2023 and written by a single author or group of authors.

An ASAP Book of the Year Award for the best collection of poverty-related essays by different authors published in 2023.

Eligible work may contribute to the definition, description, explanation, assessment or eradication of poverty and attend to any of the special challenges poor people face in regard to nutrition, water, shelter, health and health care, sanitation, clothing and personal care, energy, education, social and political participation and respect, physical safety, family planning, environmental degradations and hazards, working conditions in employment and at home, navigating governmental agencies and the legal system, banking and credit, travel and transportation, and communications.

Lifetime Achievement Award for constructive work related to poverty.

Nominations may come from any individual or organization and should contain: 1) one page of biodata of the nominee, including educational background, positions held, affiations, honors and awards; 2) two pages on the nominee’s contributions to the understanding and eradication of poverty; and 3) names, affiliations and addresses of two suitable referees.

Book of the Year Award for the best book on a poverty-related subject written by a single author or group of authors and published in 2023.

Nominations may come from any individual or organization and should contain: 1) a detailed assessment of the book, discussing its relevance to poverty, how it has broken new ground and how it is begining to have an influence; 2) a PDF copy of the book (for internal use only); and 3) names, affiliations and addresses of two suitable referees willing (probably) to contribute a review of the nominated book.

Book of the Year Award for the best collection of essays by different authors on a poverty-related subject and published in 2023.

Award winners will be announced in the autumn of 2024.

Winning books will be reviewed by Journal ASAP and promoted through ASAP Social Media and the ASAP Newsletter.

Partnering in sponsoring this competition, Springer Nature will award its winners books of their choice from Springer’s Sustainable Development Goals Series.

To send a nomination or for any questions or comments, contact Michal Apollo at editor@journalasap.org.

The 2023 inaugural winners were

Henry Shue (Oxford) – ASAP Lifetime Achievement Award.

Darrel Moellendorf – ASAP Book of the Year Award for his monograph Mobilizing Hope: Climate Change and Global Poverty.

Kayleigh Garthwaite, Ruth Patrick, Maddy Power, Anna Tarrant, and Rosalie Warnock for their anthology COVID-19 Collaborations: Researching Poverty and Low-Income Family Life during the Pandemic.

Watch the celebration of the winners here.

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Ambedkar Grants for Advancing Poverty Eradication (AGAPE)

AGAPE is a program of Academics Stand Against Poverty (ASAP), an international community of scholars and researchers working to confront the rules and practices that perpetuate global poverty and to initiate targeted, evidence-based reforms.

This program commemorates and honors Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, India’s great leader in poverty eradication. Initial seed funding for AGAPE was generously provided by Krishen and Geeta Mehta.

AGAPE provides competitive funding and mentoring for innovative pilot projects in severe poverty eradication that offer strong prospects of cost-effective scale-up.

In its first year of operation, AGAPE has made four awards in India:

The Snekithi Charitable Trust in Tamil Nadu was awarded Rs. 199000 for an initiative that will raise the productivity and thereby the incomes of Dalit woman farmers in the rain-fed areas of Karur District. AGAPE’s mentors for this project are Srilakshmi Vajrakarur and Johnson Prasant Palakkappillil.
The Kuriakose Elias Service Society (KESS) in Elanjikulam, Nadathara, Thrissur. They were awarded Rs. 200000 for an initiative that will help women who have lost their jobs build a tailoring cooperative after suitable fashion design training. AGAPE’s mentor for this project is Jose Nandhikkara.
Dr. Arambam Noni Meetai at Dhanamanjuri University, Imphal, Manipur. He was awarded Rs. 220000 for an initiative that will enable villagers in Kwatha to market their fermented bamboo shoot product directly in Imphal, thereby capturing a larger share of the final sales price. AGAPE’s mentor for this project is Tanvir Aeijaz.
The National Service Scheme Unit at Sacred Heart University and Chellanam Panchayat. It was awarded Rs. 175000 for an initiative that will improve the livelihood of women by enabling them to create an enterprise for the manufacture and distribution of ecofriendly paper bags. AGAPE’s mentor for this project is Johnson Prasant Palakkappillil.

Contributions to AGAPE are tax-deductible in India and the United States. Help those who know poverty first-hand try out their best ideas toward eradicating severe poverty for good!

In its second year, AGAPE aims to divide well over Rs. 1 million among five promising projects that will pilot innovative approaches to poverty eradication.

Here poverty is defined broadly as including the whole range of basic social and economic needs; and eradication is conceived as enabling households to escape poverty permanently. At this time, only individuals and organizations planning pilot projects in India are eligible to apply.

Srilakshmi Vajrakarur delivered a progress report on the inaugural projects in India at the ASAP/Yale GJP annual conference in November 2023.

Forwardgoing, AGAPE aims to continue funding promising projects that will pilot innovative approaches to poverty eradication. Here poverty is defined broadly as including the whole range of basic social and economic needs; and eradication is conceived as enabling households to escape poverty permanently. At this time, only individuals and organizations planning pilot projects in India are eligible to apply.

Applications should consist of one page each on the proposal and the proposers.

The proposal page should specify a detailed plan for the pilot project, preceded by a one-sentence summary statement of purpose, and followed by a brief timeline and budget.

The proposer page should give relevant details about the person(s) intending to do the work and (if applicable) their organization.

Additional supporting materials are accepted but not encouraged.

An expert panel will assess pilot projects based on their cost-effectiveness and promise of success as well as their potentials for innovation and scale-up. Projects funded in prior years may be resubmitted for additional funding.

Proposals should be sent agapeindiagroup@gmail.com.

Contacts