[council] [public comment] New Fellowship Approach – Should the Council Respond?

[Ayden Férdeline]

Dear all,

In our wrap up session on Thursday, I committed to reviewing the [Draft Proposal of the New Fellowship Program Approach](https://www.icann.org/public-comments/fellowship-proposal-2018-06-11-en) and briefly bulleting where I think the Council should consider responding. In short, I think the Council does not need to respond to this comment, as individual GNSO Stakeholder Groups/Constituencies would be better placed to do so.

However if the Council were to respond, I would suggest we focus our remarks on:

- the proposed metrics for measuring the performance of the fellowship program and how these might be improved (at present, two of the four proposed metrics are ‘number of applications by region’ and ‘number of applications by sector [stakeholder group]’, both of which will not help us understand whether the program is actually bringing active participants into the community’s policy work); and
- the willingness of the GNSO to be involved in the selection process of future fellows at the Stakeholder Group/Constituency level.

In addition, the proposed new approach calls for SO/ACs to be involved in identifying the skills that fellows should possess. I was thinking, when the GNSO initiates new Policy Development Process Working Groups in the future, perhaps we can add a new section to the working group initiation template to include desired skills in fellows relevant to that working group, which could then be communicated to the fellowship program administrators and selection committee for their information when assessing/recruiting candidates?

Finally, the consultation notes that, “budgetary decisions are not a part of this process,” so we are not being asked at this time to comment on the proposed cost implications.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on whether or not we should respond here.

Best wishes,
Ayden Férdeline
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