Join the World Water Week 2024 Young Scientific Programme Committee.
Applications are open until 16 November 2023
SIWI is seeking committed young professionals to provide support to World Water Week’s Scientific Programme Committee.
Joining the Young Scientific Programme Committee (YSPC) is an opportunity for young professionals to expand their network and gain valuable experience. As part of the YSPC, you will be a vital part of the seminar team and coordinate the SIWI Seminar Series for World Water Week 2024.
About World Water Week 2024
In a complex and fast-moving world, SIWI offers World Water Week as a setting for people to meet, discuss and move ahead; an inclusive place of hope and positive thinking; and a safe space where participants can be heard and contribute to the discussions.
Each World Water Week comprises a wide variety of sessions ranging from specialist scientific discussions to broad public policy debates. To create a structured and collective sense of purpose for all those sessions, SIWI concentrates each Week on one particular theme, selected both to set and to reflect the global agenda. The Week is designed to raise awareness of the theme, to advance the debate, to reach new consensus, and to learn from different sectors.
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Build your network and experience the world’s water conference
The YSPC began in 2012 as a complementary initiative to support World Water Week’s Scientific Programme Committee (SPC). Selected each year, the group is composed of young professionals aged 35 and under.
The YSPC collaborates with experienced water professionals to develop the SIWI Seminar Series for World Water Week. They bring an important perspective to the SPC’s work: the young professionals’ perspective.
The theme of World Water Week 2024 is “Bridging Borders: Water for a peaceful and sustainable future”. SIWI believes that water is a catalyst for people to achieve peace, cooperation and security and hence a sustainable future. The concept of peace and security has a very wide scope: not only on a narrow military/defence understanding of the word security, but more broadly to include human security, food and nutrition security, ecosystem security as well as water security. The borders to which the title refers can be borders between neighbours, communities, peoples and regions as well as between nations; the Week will encourage examples and case studies from different levels, with sessions structured on international, regional and local scales.
2024 Seminar Series titles
The YSPC will work with the SPC in developing the SIWI Seminar Series around the thematic scope: “Bridging Borders: Water for a peaceful and sustainable future”.
List of World Water Week 2024 Seminar Series titles:
- The art of water diplomacy
- The water and human security consequences of modern armed conflict and warfare
- Management of shared water resources for peace and cooperation
- Water security within just planetary boundaries
- Technical solutions for secure water supplies to help build stability and peace
- Can water for food help peaceful outcomes?
- Water for ecosystem security
- Institutions for water, peace and cooperation
- Monitoring and data to support peace and security
Learn more about the 2024 Seminar Series
How to apply
Young professionals from all sectors all encouraged to apply to one of the nine seminars or to work with the Chair. Please note that YSPC applicants must agree to provide minimum inputs in the order of 20 days from 15 January to 30 September 2024 (excluding a two-day mandatory SPC/co-convenor digital workshop in March/April and World Water Week in August). All applicants must be able to allocate this time to the committee.
To apply, please fill out the application and include the following documents:
- Your CV (including your date of birth),
- Motivation letter (maximum 1 page) indicating your seminar(s) of interest,
- Letter of recommendation
If you have any additional questions about the application process, please email Viktoria Frühling at [email protected].
Submissions for applications are open from 2 October – 16 November 2023. Applications must be submitted before the deadline. Incomplete applications will not be considered. The YSPC members are appointed in January by SIWI and the SPC after all the applications have been reviewed.
When appointing the YSPC members, SIWI emphasizes the importance that they shall reflect, if possible, the diversity and balance of World Water Week in terms of:
- Geography: Europe, N. America, Latin America, Africa, Asia.
- Backgrounds: academic/practitioner, public/private, local/global, business/civil society.
- Disciplines: natural sciences, sociology, political science, economics, law etc.
- Gender.
YSPC tasks and commitments
Committee members serve in their personal capacity. They are appointed for one World Water Week period. The YSPC will be working with the SPC in developing the SIWI Seminar Series, this includes:
- Overall coordination and communication with SPC/SIWI around the seminars (January to September)
- Screening and categorizing the abstracts submitted to the seminar (January to March)
- Developing the seminar programme (theme, structure, format, selecting presenters) (April to August)
- Uploading all the necessary seminar information in the online programme (March to September)
- Act as the contact point for presenters on content-related issues (April to August)
- Collecting biographies and photos from presenters (April to August)
- Coordinating presentation content with speakers (April to August)
- Promulgate, together with the SPC, the outputs of the seminar through appropriate reports, opinion pieces, blogs etc. (August to September)
For the Young SPC Member working alongside the Chair, the overall Terms of Reference, time needed, conditions of service etc are much the same as for the other Young SPC members, and the specific duties are:
- On behalf of the Chair, monitoring the progress of the Seminar Teams.
- Being available to support Seminar Teams who are lagging.
- Supporting and sharing the Chair’s work in general.
- Working alongside the SPC Secretary to coordinate the planning of seminars and the work carried out by the other YSPCs.
- During World Water Week: Working with the Chair to attend as many Seminar sessions as possible.
The working language of the committee is English.
For more information on the tasks and commitments of the YSPC, the terms of reference can be found here: Terms of Reference.
Deadline is 16 November 2023.
