Looking for an opportunity to catalyze sustainable, people-centered urban mobility? The Lee Schipper Memorial Scholarship wants to help you transform ideas into reality.
The Schipper family, WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities, and Volvo Research and Education Foundations (VREF) are pleased to announce that applications are now open for the 2025 Lee Schipper Memorial Scholarship for Sustainable Transport and Energy Efficiency. Jointly provided by VREF, WRI and the Schipper Family, the scholarship will award three extraordinary candidates up to US$10,000 each to advance transformative research in efficient and sustainable transport, including at least one a young researcher from Africa.
Applications are due by April 15, 2025.
Dr. Leon J. Schipper (“Lee”), 1947-2011, was a co-founder of EMBARQ (now WRI’s Urban Mobility program) and dedicated his professional life to the efficient use of energy in mobility. An international physicist, researcher and musician, Schipper inspired and shaped the thinking of a generation of students and professionals. Widely recognized for enriching policy dialogue with his passion for data and challenging conventional wisdom, this scholarship celebrates his vision.
2024 winners Olanike Babalola, Tom Courtright and Nicholas Goedeking will present their research at the Transforming Transportation 2025 conference in March 2025.
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About the Scholarship
The Lee Schipper Memorial Scholarship aims to expand contributions to sustainable transport and energy efficiency research and policy dialogue. It prioritizes “iconoclastic” contributions that have clear, transformative outputs and contribute to measurable changes. Proposals relating to different aspects of policy dialogue are welcome, including data collection and data quality, diagnosis through data analysis (qualitative and quantitative), policy analysis and evaluation, and interdisciplinary and international comparative analysis.
Who’s Eligible?
The scholarship is open to young researchers, defined as someone with five or fewer years of experience since their last academic degree (master’s or Ph.D.) and who has not yet turned 36 years by the expression of interest submission deadline (born after April 15, 1989). There are no geographic restrictions on scholarship applicants, so young researchers and students of all national origins and fields are eligible to apply. While applications should be submitted in English, research may be completed in other languages to enhance its impact.
Applications will be evaluated based on the following criteria:
- Consistency with Lee Schipper’s contributions
- Alignment with the idea of sustainable transport and energy efficiency
- Creation of innovative, transformational outcomes (“real impact”)
- Feasibility (timely, realistic)
- Applicant (affiliation, background, previous contributions, references)
Additional African Scholar Eligibility Requirements:
The African Scholarship supports a young researcher from the African continent who is currently living and working in Africa. In addition to the global selection criteria above, applicants to the African Scholarship should also:
- Hold citizenship in an African country
- Currently live and work in Africa
- Be associated with an African based institution (or an African branch of an international institution)
How to Apply
The first selection phase requires an expression of interest to be completed by April 15, 2025. Interested applicants can learn more about this process in the scholarship guidelines. From this first phase, up to seven candidates for each of the Global and African Scholarships will advance to the next selection round and will be notified in May 2025 when a more detailed research proposal will be required. Final awardees will be notified in August 2025.
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