The Lady Davis Trust offers three different Fellowships:
1. for Visiting Professors
2. for Post-doctoral researchers
3. for Doctoral students
To Doctoral Candidates:
The Trust, like all similar organizations, has suffered from the
financial instability that has affected world markets.
As a result of this uncertainty we have decided to temporarily
suspend our Doctoral Fellowship Program for the academic year
2010-11. This decision was reached with great reluctance and
after much deliberation on the subject.
We will duly update the site as soon as the program is reinstated.
THE MINIMUM CRITERIA FOR ELIGIBILITY ARE:
Visiting Professorships - you must be a full or an associate professor.
Post-doctoral researchers - if you are applying for the Academic Year 2010-2011 you must have received your Doctorate not earlier than the first of October, 2006.
Doctoral students - you must be enrolled in a recognized doctoral program at a university outside Israel.
As a general rule, Visiting Professorships are awarded to candidates who apply from Universities outside of Israel. Visiting Professors are typically expected to teach courses, participate in or lead seminars, engage in research with their hosts, or interact with other Faculty members. The precise mix of activities will be mutually decided upon by the Visitor and his/her academic sponsor.
Fellowships are rarely awarded to candidates who acquired their Doctorate at the Hebrew University and who wish to continue immediately after the Doctorate with a Post-Doctoral Fellowship - such candidates are advised to contact the Trust's office for further details.
Lady Davis Fellowships are awarded after a rigorous academic review process. Candidates are ranked first at the Departmental level, and then at Faculty level. The Faculty rankings are reviewed by the Academic Committee of the Trust which decides who will receive a Fellowship.
The office of the Trust coordinates applications for other professorial and Post-Doctoral Fellowships available at the University. Thus, an application made to the Trust will automatically be considered for all the other Awards at the disposal of the University. Consequently, the award of a Fellowship at these levels could be financed either by the Trust or by any other of the Funds at the disposal of the University. The official letter of appointment sent to the Fellow will specify which particular award he/she has received. The terms and conditions of the awards, whether offered by the Trust or by the University, are completely identical.
At the Doctoral level Fellowships are awarded only by the Trust. The purpose of a Doctoral Fellowship is to enable a student to either pursue research, or consult with a scholar, or access specific manuscripts, all or any of which (research/scholar/manuscripts) are available only at the Hebrew University and which are necessary in order to complete the dissertation. In other words, students return to their University after the year of the Fellowship for the remaining time required to write their dissertations.
The Fellowships are intended not only to promote an exchange of ideas and information, but also to cement personal relationships that will provide the basis for an ongoing academic liaison in the future.
YOU MUST HAVE AN ACADEMIC SPONSOR.
Prospective candidates must establish contact with the relevant Faculty or Department at the Hebrew University, and ensure that there is a Faculty member willing to sponsor the application. We will not be able to process an application without a sponsor.
An academic sponsor does not simply agree to passively supervise your research from time to time while you are at the Hebrew University. We expect your sponsor to actively support your research proposal because it is of a nature that is closely connected to and compliments his/her own particular expertise, and opens up new areas of study which he/she would be interested to pursue. Therefore, the enthusiasm he/she can show in the letter of support to actively collaborate with you on your proposed research will indicate to the Academic Committee the importance he/she attaches to your proposed visit.
A sponsor must have the rank of Lecturer (or above) and he/she must be on the Regular Academic Track at the Hebrew University. An Emeritus Professor may be a co-sponsor but not the main sponsor.
You may have more than one sponsor who is willing to support your application from the same Faculty/Department. If your area of research is inter-disciplinary, you must have at least one sponsor from each Faculty/Department. However, in any case, you may only submit ONE application and you will have to decide which Faculty/Department is your 'Major' and channel your application through that Faculty/Department.
Each sponsor is allowed only one candidate for each of the three different Fellowship levels. In other words the same sponsor may support one Visiting Professor, one Post-Doctoral Researcher and one Doctoral Student in any one academic year. Please check that your sponsor is not supporting any other candidate at your level. However if a candidate has been awarded an extension of an extra year to his Fellowship, that same sponsor may support a new candidate in the year of the extension.
There is no special form that a sponsor needs to fill out - a letter will suffice.
Please ensure that the sponsor clearly indicates that he/she has no plans to be either on Sabbatical or unpaid leave during the relevant year of the Fellowship. The academic committee also requires the sponsor to assess whether or not the stated research can be completed in one year or whether there will be a need for an extension of one more year.
Next page: How to locate a sponsor.
