The Georg Arnhold Fellowships in
Projects of the IRC
Bridging the Gap between Research and Practice
The Leibniz Institute for Educational Media | Georg Eckert Institute (GEI) has been working with the International Rescue Committee (IRC) within the remit of the Georg Arnhold Program since 2020. The purpose of the collaboration is to promote research and activities on education for sustainable peace, to foster the international exchange of ideas, theories and methods in the field of peace education and between scholars and practitioners working in this field. By strengthening the connection between academia, practice and civil society this collaboration aims to facilitate research and enable relevant findings to be translated into practical recommendations and initiatives.
In the field of peace education, theoretical and methodological research and the transfer of findings and methodologies into practice are closely interrelated. However, there are gaps in communication and knowledge transfer between research and practical peace work, in both directions. The Georg Arnhold Fellowship in Projects of the IRC was established to bridge this gap between research and practice.
The fellowship allows selected individuals to embed within IRC research projects and work closely with IRC staff in undertaking work to further the interests of both the IRC and the fellow. The fellowship thus provides an opportunity for researchers to bring their research, theories and methods into the field, to develop new methods or to learn from ongoing development projects and initiatives for their own research.
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Stage 1: The Workshop at the Annual Summer Conference
The IRC’s research and innovation arm, the Airbel Impact Lab, works closely with the GEI on the coordination of the international Georg Arnhold Summer Conference, which includes a workshop. The workshop employs Airbel’s approach to design in order to explore connections between the IRC’s work and the academic efforts of researchers at the summer conference. Participants use design methods and processes to work through practical ways of improving the impact of their work and/or increasing its scope for application.
The IRC’s design approach uses qualitative field research to uncover end user’s needs, values and current behavior. The IRC engages users in every step of the process; rapidly prototyping, testing and refining ideas with desirability, scale, impact and cost-efficiency as the core goals.
Some incubator activities may include:
- Understanding the user: Identifying pain points, habit mapping, journey mapping
- Contextualization: Communicating clearly, leveraging existing networks and messengers
- Connecting interventions to user values: Persona building, moral reframing, linking to aspirations
- Improving surveying and data collection through the experience of the end user
- Rapid prototyping of methods to collect data and arrive at better questions
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Stage 2: The Selection Process
All attendees of the annual Georg Arnhold International Summer Conference are welcome to join the workshop session and are eligible for selection to participate in a Fellowship with the IRC. Following the summer conference, IRC research and innovation staff will develop a shortlist of candidates for the fellowship based on alignment between the background and experiences of candidates outlined in conference applications and IRC’s current research needs and capacities. These shortlisted individuals may be interviewed by a panel of IRC staff, including potential research supervisors. The timing of the interview process and fellowship varies each year, depending on the timing of relevant research projects at the IRC.
The Georg Arnhold Fellowship at the IRC
Up to 5 individuals are selected to undertake fellowships with the IRC. These individuals will work closely with an IRC research focal point and with local staff to undertake work which furthers the interests of the fellow and the IRC.
A clear scope of work is articulated prior to the offer and acceptance of the fellowship placement, to include specific deliverables and travel dates (if applicable).
All fellows are responsible for producing a report on their fellowship, which may be published in full or part as a blog post or other publicity channel by the IRC and GEI. Fellows are also required to share work output: scholarly, practical or otherwise (e.g., synthesized interviews, a prototype, insights report, survey results, etc.). Finally, fellows may be asked to participate in alumni discussions.
