The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Research Fellowship Program (RFP) is a small grants program administered by WCS which, from 1993 to 2007, funded over 300 proposals resulting in important conservation around the world. The RFP grants help build research capacity for the next generation of conservation practitioners worldwide. The Program supports individual field research projects that have a clear application to conservation.

In recent years the RFP was re-designed with a focus on supporting work directly related to WCS priority land/seascapes, species, and/or the global initiatives of wildlife health, climate change, ecosystem services/payments for ecosystem services, and natural resource management. Specific information on these topics can be found at the WCS website below.

RFP applicants must be citizens of developing countries (i.e., any country not defined as a "high income economy" by the World Bank at http://data.worldbank.org/about/country-classifications/country-and-lend...). An exception is made for applicants who are Native American (US) or First Nations, Métis, or Inuit (Canada). The Program seeks to support the field work of graduate-level students (Masters, PhD, DVM, or equivalent; however applications will be accepted from all conservationists in the early stages of their career) who will work with WCS staff in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and in special cases, North America (as noted above).

Before applying, we strongly recommend that applicants first contact WCS field staff in their country and then send a one-paragraph summary of their intended proposal to [email protected] for review and feedback. Please be sure to include the topic of your study (species, place, global initiative) Collectively, the professionals receiving RFP grants will apply field-tested conservation science to the challenges facing the natural world.