Thursday 27 September 2018

CIRCLE Achievements: The CIRCLE Visiting Fellowship Alumni

by The CIRCLE Team

CIRCLE is now halfway through our one-year extension, and we have been busy collecting data from all our CIRCLE Visiting Fellowship (CVF) alumni and institutions involved in the Institutional Strengthening Programme. We thought it would be good to share news on all their achievements reported over the last 6 months, to give you an idea of the impact of our programme!

One of the overarching aims of the CIRCLE Programme is to strengthen the capacity of African scientists to undertake research on climate change and its local impacts on development. The CIRCLE Visiting Fellowship aims to help achieve this aim, by funding 100 Fellowships for African climate change researchers to spend a year at a host institution within Sub-Saharan Africa. To monitor progress, CIRCLE invites all our Fellows to complete follow-up surveys every three months during their fellowship, and every six months after its completion. Between 2015 and 2017, three Cohorts took part in the CVF Programme, with the third and final Cohort settling back into their home institution in December 2017.



In June 2018, CIRCLE invited all our alumni to complete a follow-up survey on progress and achievements over the last 6 months. As such, Cohort 1 were 2.5 years post-fellowship, Cohort 2 1.5 years post-fellowship and Cohort 3 6-months post-fellowship.

Of the 96 Fellows who were invited to complete the survey, 74 Fellows responded. Since returning to their home institution, our CVF Alumni reported improvements in training and development opportunities, opportunities to apply newly developed skills and experiences, and their overall responsibilities and career opportunities. There was however little improvement in their time to conduct their research, with female respondents more likely to respond having a reduction in time. Although, many Fellows have indicated that the increase in time constraints are a result of their involvement in CIRCLE, as the skills and experience gained has resulted in increased responsibilities.
The most commonly reported challenges in applying skills were time, resources and funding, as well as gaining wider-institutional support or recognition of their experience. Those that were able to share their skills were more likely to do so through presentations at conferences/workshops, through mentoring, or by applying their skills in a new role. We had 19 Fellows report that they had been promoted, with 12 of these indicating that this promotion has been influenced by their participation in CIRCLE. 61 Fellows reported that they were mentoring other academics at their institution, which is higher than the number reported 6 months ago.

Now that the Fellowships have been completed, we were interested to see if any of the relationships and research developed through CIRCLE were still ongoing. We found that 84% of CVF alumni were still in contact with or were actively collaborating with their host supervisor and 82% with other CVFs outside of their home institution. We also found that 59% of CVF Alumni were undertaking further research related to their CIRCLE research projects during this reporting period.

An incredible 128 peer-review journal articles have been submitted since January 2018, with 51 being published to date and a further 17 being accepted and awaiting publication. 44 submitted articles were focused on CIRCLE research, with 15 published and 9 currently awaiting publication. Where data was available, 93% of peer-review submissions were to reputable journals, with 53% of these to high-ranking Q1-4 journals. While CIRCLE research fared even better, with 94% of CIRCLE research articles submitted to reputable journals and 56% of these to high-ranking Q1-4 journals. Our Alumni have also been busy attending a range of conferences and events over the last 6 months, with 94 events attended and CVFs presenting research at 56 of these.

In addition to publishing, 54% of our Fellows have been involved in a total of 74 applications for grants and funding since January, with 14 successful applications to date and almost half a million USD being awarded. 65% of our CVF Alumni have also been involved in 107 collaborations with a range of successful outputs including policy briefs, book chapters, events, and community outreach activities.



We are very proud of our alumni and are pleased to see that the training and support delivered by both CIRCLE and their home and host institutions is continuing to have a positive impact on their personal and professional development. We only have another six months left of our programme, but we’re certain that we will see even more reported achievements from our Fellows throughout the remainder of the programme.

If you would like to find out more about our Fellows, you can read their profiles on our website.
A full copy of the January – June 2018 CVF Follow-up Report will soon be available on our website.

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