I’ve been asked by lots of people about the early days of a Churchill fellowship. I will do a later post on what the application process looks like. In the meantime, my top tips for new Fellows would be:

• Treat this as a part-time job. Set out regular (limited) working hours for yourself. It can be all-consuming if you let it.
• Write a proper project plan and develop a timeline for delivering your project (not the timetable for your travel – that comes next!).
• Consider using a separate email address from your work or usual personal address. The volume of emails is high and it’s good to have things separate. Also, when you are traveling overseas you may not have access to your work email (I won’t) and so having everything together from the start feels like a sensible move.
• Save your receipts. From now. Everything: every cup of coffee you buy someone, every subscription you take out, every app you purchase.
• Do a proper stakeholder analysis. Think about who you want to influence and reach as you are doing your research and delivering your project, not just at the end. Get ready to network.
• Think carefully about how you are going to use social media. It can double or triple your workload if you let it. Start small, maybe posting once a fortnight or so, otherwise it will start to feel like a chore.
• Take lots of photos of “your process”. Tell the story of your journey from the beginning of the work, not the beginning of the travel. The end report is only one building block. And it will help with your social media too!
• Engage with your work colleagues. They will be interested, and in some cases it will be their job to support you. For example, my organisation’s media team are keen to handle all my media inquiries as my project is closely related to my organisation’s work. And my organisation’s cyber and information security team are now part of my small advisory group who will help me shape the interviews I undertake when I finally meet my overseas connections.
• Finally, take notice of everything that’s happening around you. It’s amazing how much relates to your thinking when you’re in the zone. In my case, in November 2024, that was not so hard…

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