Professional Fellowship Programme
Structured mentorship, practical design experience, and fully funded residential training
Details
The transition from academic research to undergraduate teaching is often abrupt. While early-career science and mathematics faculty are deeply trained in their scientific disciplines, they are rarely equipped with systematic pedagogical training, assessment frameworks, or instructional design methodologies.
The USE Professional Fellowship Programme bridges this critical gap. Designed specifically for early-career educators, including young faculty, post-doctoral scholars, and senior research scholars transitioning into higher education teaching, this fellowship offers structured mentorship, practical design experience, and fully funded residential training.
The fellowship operates through a sequential model that balances remote preparation with intensive, in-person instructional practice:
- Phase I: Virtual mentorship and resource design (1 – 2 months): Fellows are paired with experienced faculty mentors at Azim Premji University. During this virtual phase, fellows meet weekly with their mentors to review core concepts in modern pedagogical design. Together, they analyse pedagogical practices, learning taxonomies, curriculum design, and active-learning strategies. Rather than working in the abstract, each fellow selects a specific unit, laboratory exercise, or assessment module within their discipline to redesign or build from scratch, incorporating low-cost, context-sensitive materials.
- Phase II: On-campus residency and implementation (2 weeks): Following the virtual design phase, fellows participate in a two-week fully funded residential programme hosted at Azim Premji University. The residency focuses on live classroom practice and peer observation. Fellows observe undergraduate science and mathematics classes in real time, analyse instructor-student dynamics, and co-facilitate active learning modules alongside senior faculty. During workshop hours, fellows test, refine, and receive detailed feedback on the instructional materials they drafted during Phase I.
Every fellow produces a fully developed, field-tested educational resource, such as an active-learning workbook, an inquiry-based laboratory experiment or a contextualised problem set. These materials undergo peer review and are published under an open-access license in the USE Digital Repository, providing high-visibility recognition for the fellow’s pedagogical innovation.
To ensure financial equity and remove participation barriers, participants receive a dedicated professional stipend upon completing the fellowship milestones. Full room, boarding, and travel reimbursement (residential coverage) are provided during the two-week campus residency.
Applications open twice a year. Interested educators can review eligibility requirements, selection criteria, and upcoming cohort timelines on the Fellowship Application page.