The Rhodes Trust is today announcing a new fellowship into the wider Rhodes community—the Schmidt Science Fellows in partnership with the Rhodes Trust. The Schmidt Science Fellows idea has been developed with the Eric & Wendy Schmidt Fund for Strategic Innovation and the Rhodes Trust. It will involve a long-term partnership to create a tailored 14-month Post-Doc program across a number of world class universities for up to 40 Schmidt STEM Fellows each year. The Schmidt Fund will also provide funding for additional geographic expansion of the Rhodes Scholarships.
“The Rhodes Trust works to develop leaders who can collaborate across academic disciplines and national boundaries. The Schmidt Science Fellows will accelerate this important task” said Charles Conn, CEO of the Rhodes Trust and Warden of Rhodes House. “For the past year, we have been working together to develop the Fellows program, which will further our aspiration to identify and support innovative, energetic and ethical leaders.”
The Schmidt Science Fellows program will enable talented students who have finished a DPhil in STEM subjects to explore new areas within science, widening their horizons and providing them with the skills and leadership development to maximise their future impact as science leaders. As part of their Schmidt Fellows program, there will be a three-week curriculum at Rhodes House and at Oxford’s world-class departments, and also time at other leading institutions around the world.
“This is an unprecedented era of scientific progress, when artificial intelligence, robotics, nanotechnology and other breakthroughs can dramatically advance fields as disparate as civil engineering, biochemistry and computer science,” said Eric Schmidt. “To address society’s most pressing issues, our best scientists and technologists in all disciplines will need to work effectively with non-profits, government and business. This program will help our Fellows develop skills that accelerate the pace of research and discovery in their future work, and to serve as the next generation of scientific leaders.”
In addition to the universities that will host Fellows over the course of the program, numerous other leading research universities around the world will also participate by nominating candidates for the fellowship and helping to place Fellows in cutting-edge research laboratories. Applications for the program are due by December 31, 2017. The first class of Fellows will be announced in the spring of 2018, and will begin the program in the summer. The program will grow in successive years, ultimately admitting 35-50 Fellows annually.
More information about the program can be found at schmidtsciencefellows.org.