2020-21 Atlantic Fellows
Policy-makers, researchers and educators, international development experts and civil society practitioners are among the 17 social-change leaders who will join LSE’s International Inequalities Institute this autumn as Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity.
The new Fellows in the innovative programme include a Malaysian researcher into care economies and a food security and refugee resettlement expert from Kenya; a Serbian human rights lawyer and a Chilean economist working in higher education policy; and a Mexican scholar who uses social media to spotlight facts about inequalities.
In September 2020, the fourth cohort of Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity will join a community that now numbers 68 current and lifelong Fellows from 35 countries across Africa, Asia, Oceania, the Americas and Europe. This year’s intake spans the globe, with new Fellows from Argentina, Botswana, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ghana, Hungary, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Serbia, Trinidad and Tobago, and the UK.
Dr Armine Ishkanian, executive director of the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity programme and associate professor in LSE’s Department of Social Policy, said: “Globally, we are living through historic times. The coronavirus pandemic has exposed and is exacerbating social and economic inequalities. Concurrently, social movements and activists around the globe are mobilising to challenge inequalities and to demand systemic change. At this critical juncture, it is important not only to understand and respond to the challenges, but also to rethink everything and to imagine alternative, more sustainable and equitable, futures.”
Dr Ishkanian added: “As a programme, Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity is committed to drawing on and bringing together the insights of academic research, innovative social change strategies, and our Fellows’ own experience and expertise. We look forward to welcoming our new cohort of Fellows to the programme and supporting their professional and personal development as they continue to work towards creating more equitable and just societies and futures.”
The 2020-21 Fellows have been selected from a worldwide pool of outstanding applicants that has grown year-on-year since the programme launched in 2017 with a record £64 million grant to LSE from Atlantic Philanthropies.
Seven of the 17 will be residential Fellows, undertaking LSE’s MSc in Inequalities and Social Science in the 2020-21 academic year. They and their 11 non-residential peers will also undertake the Fellowship’s innovative one-year programme of engagement with researchers and campaigners, leadership training and narrative and communications skills work, all built upon a rigorous, interdisciplinary academic course led by Dr Ishkanian and Dr Sara Camacho Felix, the programme’s assistant professorial lecturer.
Upon completion of their LSE year, the 2020-21 Fellows will join a lifelong catalytic community comprised of members of all seven Atlantic Fellows programmes around the world who are working to advance fairer, healthier and more inclusive societies. Applications for the fifth cohort of Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity will open in mid-October 2020.