Hi all, Please find below the responses from Heather to some questions in the thread related to fellowship selection process. Best Regards, Rafik ---------- Forwarded message --------- De : Heather Forrest Date: mer. 10 avr. 2019 à 21:32 Subject: Fellowship Selection Process- Council questions answered To: Rafik Dammak Dear Rafik, I would be very grateful for your help with posting these responses to questions about the Fellowship selection process to the Council list. 1. Arsene raised the following: "The ability to speak English SHOULD NOT, in my opinion, be a criterion when selecting a member of the fellowship program." To clarify, the strawman that I prepared and which is now being discussed and modified by Councillors should set out *additional *criteria of a GNSO-specific nature. These criteria will be considered in respect of applicants who express an interest in, or an existing involvement with, the GNSO. There are universal criteria that apply to all applications; a basic ability to communicate in English is indeed inherent in the process, as applications must be submitted in English and understandable to the Selection Committee members. It seems to me that it is not necessary to specify English language ability as a GNSO-specific criterion. 2. Ayden has raised concerns about "confusion around why the fellowship exists." Ayden is absolutely correct that the Fellowship program is now being seen as a tool to relieve volunteer burnout and introduce active new policy development members. I pushed very hard in the Marrakech selection round to implement a minimum threshold score for 'likelihood of meaningful future engagement'. This reduced the overall number of Fellowships awarded for Marrakech, but I strongly believe that we should not follow the previous mentality of awarding as many Fellowships as are budgeted simply because the budget exists. 3. Elsa asked: "I wonder what will make anyone be sure of the criteria being met?" It will be the job of the Fellowship Selection Committee to evaluate, based on the information provided in each application, an applicant's satisfaction of the criteria. In addition to the SO/AC-specific post-Fellowship follow-up that Elsa suggests, staff are, on request of the Fellowship Selection Committee, investigating ways of objectively tracking what a Fellow does post-Fellowship. For example, we can ask: Has the Fellow joined at least one WG as an active member, or joined and made active contributions to the work of an SG/C. Has the prior Fellow participated in any ICANN meetings (whether f2f or remote) since their Fellowship? In other words, there is much more that we can do to follow up. This hasn't been done in the past, but I will continue to push hard for this going forward. Where an applicant is relatively new to ICANN, we have other ways when reviewing the application to assess whether they have potential to become active participants based on what they have done outside of ICANN. I believe this addresses Elsa's second question as well. 4. Elsa also asked: "Will this be reviewed at some point after the requirements of all SO/ACs are submitted?" Yes! What I suggest is that when the GNSO-specific criteria are applied in the Montreal round, I will report back to Council on any issues or questions that the Committee had when applying the GNSO criteria. We will have a continuous opportunity to reflect and modify. These are definitely NOT cast in stone! Let's get to a set of criteria that the Fellowship Selection Committee can apply for Montreal, re-evaluate, and revise as appropriate. Best wishes to you all, Heather