Kleinhans Fellowship 2027 for Community Forestry Research

The Kleinhans Fellowship supports research on community forestry: how forest-dependent communities manage, use and earn a living from forests without destroying them. It is run by the Rainforest Alliance and is one of the longer-running awards in this specific field.

Who can apply

The fellowship is open to applicants of all nationalities at Masters, PhD and postdoctoral level. Its subject scope sits in environment and climate together with the natural sciences. Applications can be submitted in English, Spanish or Portuguese, which is unusual and genuinely widens access for lusophone researchers who would otherwise be writing in a second language.

What the award covers

The fellowship provides a grant of $20,000 (US) per year for two years. What it does not do is equally important: it will not subsidise academic tuition or fees, and it will not cover the purchase of transport vehicles or equipment judged unnecessary or unreasonable. A budget built around a vehicle purchase will not survive review, so plan fieldwork logistics another way.

Deadline and how it runs

Applications opened at the end of August. The next deadline for applications is February 28, 2027. That is a long window by the standards of research funding, and it is worth using: a fellowship of this length expects a research design that can actually be delivered over twenty-four months in the field.

Before you apply

Anchor the proposal in a specific forest community and an existing relationship rather than a region in the abstract. Reviewers in community forestry can tell the difference between a project that has partners on the ground and one that hopes to find them after the money arrives.