Thank you for your interest in applying for a Tyee Fellowship. There are two fellowships, which will reopen for applications later in 2012. Each has a common goal to educate and engage citizens in thinking through our shared future.

The Tyee Investigative Fellowship funds investigative research and reporting focused on B.C.

While the reporting must relate directly to B.C., there are no restrictions on subject matter, which may include education, the environment, discrimination, workplace rights and safety, poverty, ethics, business, science, etc.

The Tyee Solutions Fellowship funds research and reporting on promising attempts at solving problems facing B.C.

These may include an emerging body of knowledge, small scale experiments or wider initiatives yielding tangible, positive results, and may include reporting outside the province if the fi ndings are applicable here.

While the reporting must relate directly to B.C., there are no restrictions on subject matter, which may include education, the environment, human rights, economics, worker safety, health, addiction, gender and sexuality, poverty, government, consumer ethics, etc.

Recipients are chosen in confidence by an expert independent advisory board, at arms length from The Tyee staff and editorial team.

Fellowship winners receive $5,000 each to produce a series of three or more articles, each running at least 1,000 words.

Series will be published first on The Tyee, and then will be available to be published by other publications upon request.

APPLICATION INFORMATION:

We're not currently accepting applications, but it's definitely time to begin thinking about your proposal for when we are.

Our next fellowship fundraising drive is planned for later in 2012, to be followed soon after by a call-out to journalists for application submissions.

You can be sure we'll give you plenty of notice to submit. In the meantime, you can peruse last year's winners here, and be sure to check back often for updates.

SELECTION CRITERIA:

All submissions are directed to the independent advisory board for the Funds. No Tyee editor or staff person reads them at any point. Members of the advisory board sign a pledge not to share any information from the submissions outside the board.

Fellows are chosen by consensus of the advisory board, through a competitive process, after careful consideration. Members of the advisory board read all submissions, confer, and select fellows based on these criteria:

• originality and timeliness of the idea
• relevance to British Columbians
• potential to enhance public discussion
• previous track record of journalist
• feasibility of the project based on available resources

No partisan political applications will be chosen.

OTHER INFORMATION:

Who owns the publishing rights to Fellows' work? Who owns the research?

The Tyee Fellowship Funds are charitable funds separate from The Tyee (which is not a charity).

The funds are held at and managed by Tides Canada Foundation -- a national public foundation.

The independent advisory board that vets all the applications will choose four fellows. Tides Canada, the charity, disburses fellowship grants from the two funds. Tides Canada owns the reports and publishing rights that result from the fellows' research, which, as required by Canadian charity law, are intended for broad public education; therefore, the widest possible public dissemination.

The Tyee is afforded first publication rights to those reports, and then, on Tides Canada's behalf, responds to requests for republication.

The fellow, or author, owns the ideas, data etc. gathered during the research and writing of the reports. After the terms of the fellowship grant have been fulfilled, and the resulting reports have been published, the fellow is free to produce new and different content (articles, books, films, etc.) from that research and to sell that content to whomever he or she wishes and keep all rights and proceeds.

When will fellowship grants be made?

Fellowships are disbursed in parts: half at the beginning of the project, half upon completion of the project. The project is deemed completed when the draft articles have been edited into final form by a Tyee editor and approved by the fellow.

Will there be another round of Fellowships?

Journalists, hold tight! We're not currently accepting applications, but plans are in the making to launch our next fellowship fundraising drive in 2012.

Details about the application process will be announced soon after, leaving you plenty of time to thoughtfully put together your fellowship proposal. In the meantime, be sure to check back often for updates.