About the Award
The Fieldwork Apprenticeships aim to give students the opportunity during the summer to work as a Fieldwork Apprentice for a number of weeks on a research project either in the UK or overseas, led by an academic member of staff at their university.
Applicants must be UK nationals, be resident and studying geography as an undergraduate in a UK HEI and be in the first or second year of their Bachelor’s degree. Applicants must have the support of a lecturer at their UK HEI to participate in a fieldwork project.
Applicants should demonstrate how opportunities to get involved in fieldwork would not be available to them were it not for the Field Apprenticeship. Where possible they should demonstrate the challenging circumstance that prevents them from having access to such opportunities.
Recipients will be expected to share their experiences with others for example at their own institution or through the Geography Ambassadors programme.
Applications will be assessed by a panel of experts. Shortlisted applicants will be interviewed.
These awards are supported through the generous donation of John and Anne Alexander and are part of a portfolio of grants, the Alexander Awards, to support and enthuse students from less advantaged backgrounds through fieldwork. The Alexander Awards also support fieldwork through the Geographical Fieldwork Grants and A Level residential field study courses in the UK.
From 2023, one Apprenticeship will be supported through the generous donation of the Hepworth Family, through the Dorothy Hepworth Expedition Award.
All prospective grant applicants should read our Advice and Resources pages, which include more information about the grants programme, its conditions and what is expected if your application is successful. Please read this information carefully and send your completed application form below, or any enquiries, by email to grants@rgs.org. The lecturer with whom you will undertake the fieldwork should complete the academic mentor form and submit this by email to grants@rgs.org.
This grant was not awarded in 2020 or 2021.
Deadline: Applications are considered on an ongoing basis. Please submit applications as soon as possible, and by 1 May 2023 at the latest.
Application form
Academic Mentor form
Previous recipients
2022
Eleanor Hall (University of Hertfordshire): 'Establishing a baseline dataset of permafrost thaw induced landslides in Adventdalen, Svalbard'
Alice Jardine (University of Oxford): 'Role of the Congo Air Boundary (DRY-CAB)'
Christopher Edmunds (University of Oxford): 'Role of the Congo Air Boundary (DRY-CAB)'
2019
Kate Nicholls (Nottingham Trent University): 'Ultra-rapid glacier change in SE Iceland: new lakes, new glacier dynamics and new ecological opportunities'
Noah Bouchier (University of Bristol): 'African centre for cities (human settlements citylab – upgrading informal settlements)'
Heather Needham (King’s College London): 'Cloud forest reduction in Peruvian Andes'
Isobel Bond (University of Sheffield): 'Resilience to hazards around Yasur volcano, Vanuatu'
Callum Clark (University of Sheffield): 'Environmental and human impacts of Mt Yasur due to gas emissions affecting local water quality'
2018
Joshua Oldfield (University of the West of England, Bristol): 'Global Water Security Programme, Kisoro, Uganda'
Hannah Roe (Keele University): 'What can contemporary proglacial lakes tell us about the early stages of Holocene lake ontogeny?'
2017
Charlotte Day (University of Hertfordshire): 'Ecological Consequences of Glacio-Fluvial Sediment Transfer'
Jessica Bracken (Queen Mary University of London): 'Small-scale glacial erosional landforms in present and past glacial environments'
Eleisha Lord, Zayd Abid-Waheed, Giorgia Frost, Joshua Ballard (University of Salford): 'Salford Alpine Glacier Project'
Fieldwork Apprenticeships were also awarded from 2008 to 2016 through the Learning and Leading programme (now Alexander Awards Summer School).