Natural Resources

Call for Fellowship Applications: 2011-2012

The Competition for Natural Resources: The New Geopolitical Great Game?

Call for Proposals

The Transatlantic Academy is seeking candidates to serve as resident Fellows for ten months for the fellowship year with beginning in September 2011. A joint project of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius, the Robert Bosch Stiftung and the Harry and Lynde Bradley Foundation, the Transatlantic Academy is located at the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Washington DC. The academy brings together scholars from Europe and North America to work on a set of related issues facing the transatlantic community. The academy is an interdisciplinary institution which is open to all social science disciplines, the humanities and the natural sciences. For more information on the Academy please visit our website at www.transatlanticacademy.org. The academy welcomes applications from scholars working on the theme of The Competition for Natural Resources: The New Geopolitical Great Game? (Fellowship year 2011-2012). The proposals for Fellowship year 2011-2012 will be reviewed beginning May 10, 2010 with offers extended no later than mid September 2010.

Background

In its first year, the Transatlantic Academy looked at the movement of people into western communities and how the transatlantic region was redefining itself in the wake on these massive population shifts. The second year dealt with the evolving role of Turkey in its immediate neighborhood and the implications for the transatlantic community. In its third year (2010-2011), the Academy will bring together a multidisciplinary group of scholars to consider the big questions raised by the geopolitical shifts of the Twenty First century associated with the rise of Asia, and in particular, China.

Research Theme for Fellowship Year 2011-2012

The Competition for Natural Resources: The New Geopolitical Great Game?

“Man and not nature initiates, but nature in large measure controls.”

Harold Mackinder

In the fellowship year which runs from September 2011-June 2012, the Academy is calling for applications from fellows who would like to conduct research on the broad complex of issues surrounding the implications of resource scarcity for the new geopolitical environment. The competition for natural resources, including energy, water and food has risen to the center of strategic concerns due to the rise of the new economic powers, especially China and India, a rapidly growing world population living in increasing numbers in urban environments, climate change and the vulnerability of sea lanes. The research must examine implications of these challenges for Europe and North America and consideration of common transatlantic approaches to deal with them. Among the research themes of interest are:

Food security as a transatlantic issue: to include considerations of how Europe and North America can cooperate on reforming their agricultural sectors to promote food production while protecting the environment; the measures the West should take in protecting its food supplies particularly in light of a changing climate, including climate induced drought; ways the West can effect policy reform to promote development of food resources in food scare regions; the links between food security and energy and environmental security and the links to a broader geostrategy which includes food security as part of an integrated approach to securing access to natural resources; the implications of increased competition for land and the rise in demand for biofuels as well as how reforestation plans could affect food security.

Resource Competition and Geopolitical Competition: consideration of the role of the search to secure energy, water and food resources in the geopolitical competition of the Twenty First century, including the impact of China’s resource driven geopolitical strategy, the cost of securing access to energy and other natural resources including subsidies for fossil fuel exploration and transport, military and other defense costs, the need for the West to craft a common approach to energy, food and resource security, the points of conflict between a market system approach and a state managed one, the implications for human rights and democracy promotion of a resource based geopolitics, the implications for the environment (e.g., the global climate, water and air pollution, destruction of forests and other natural areas related to natural resource exploration). Exploration of cooperation to reduce natural resources competition, such as joint strategies to rely more heavily on renewable energy and reduce demand by consuming energy more efficiently will also be included.

New Technologies and Resource Competition: An examination of how new technologies could affect the geography of resource trade, including how new technologies coming on line could free the planet from resource and geographic constraints and the policies, financing and international cooperation needed to support their wide-scale adoption, including the development of concrete recommendations on policies and options to mobilize needed financing.

The Role of Multilateral Actors: Is there a role for intergovernmental actors in the geopolitics of natural resource competition? Evaluation of how well international efforts under way to support cooperation on clean technologies, such as the GEF, the Asia-Pacific Partnership, IRENA, among others are working and recommendations for new institutions or the improvement of existing ones. Can the EU be a regional model for Asia and other regions or is the nature of this competition such that it is inherently –and inevitably a national level phenomena?

The Diplomacy of Climate Change and the Role of China: China has been accused by Europe and the United States of forcefully obstructing progress in Copenhagen. Why is China so vehemently opposed to legally binding commitments under a strong multilateral climate treaty and to international checks to verify that it’s on track to slow emissions? Does China take the problem of climate change seriously? Why didn’t the United States and the European Union have much leverage over China in Copenhagen and can a coordinated U.S.-EU approach to China be developed?

The Academy Fellows will spend the year both conducting their own individual research and in developing a collaborative research project which will come to grips with some of the key challenges facing the transatlantic community.

Eligibility

A minimum of four senior and two junior scholars, three from Europe and three from North America, will work in a collaborative environment. Applicants for senior fellowships must have a PhD and have professional experience equivalent to that of an Associate Professor. Postdoctoral fellowship applicants must complete their PhD before the fellowship begins or within the last two years. Assistant Professors are also eligible for the junior fellowships.

Fellows will be expected to present their own research and to react to the work of their colleagues on a regular basis. They will also be expected to discuss their research with policy makers, non governmental organizations and other policy oriented institutions, both in the United States and Europe.

In addition to a generous monthly stipend, Fellows will receive travel expenses to and from the Academy and a research allowance.

How to Apply

Applications will be reviewed beginning May 10, 2010 with offers made by September 1, 2010. Applications can be downloaded from the academy’s website.

www.transatlanticacademy.org

For more information and an application please contact Anna Murphy, Program Associate, at amurphy@transatlanticacademy.org.

Dr. Stephen Szabo, Executive Director

The Transatlantic Academy

The German Marshall Fund of the United States

1744 R St. N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20009

202.683 2644

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