Academic Membership Guidelines
Become a member!
Who Should Apply?
The GovTech Global Alliance welcomes researchers, faculty, and academic professionals from around the world to join our initiative.
For all academic members, participation in the GovTech Global Alliance is free.
Which departments, faculties, and research entities can join?
GovTech as a field interacts with a wide range of disciplines and GovTech Global Alliance actively fosters a cross-disciplinary environment and encourages participation across diverse academic entities and research focus areas.
Your institution may have a dedicated technology policy, government studies, or MBA program, and this may be a great place to start. However, Alliance membership is benefitted by including disciplines that may not always see themselves directly working in partnership with government. For example, computer science, climate engineering, humanities, history, cultural studies, and legal scholarship are highly relevant to our collaborative knowledge building activities, and no previous public sector experience is required. The choice of which department(s) or research groups will benefit most from alliance activities is highly contextual based on structural, regional, and individual considerations.
Individuals or Teams?
Academic membership must include a minimum of two representatives and (generally) a maximum of four representatives.
Representatives may belong to the same or different departments/ research group
Only one representative should initiate the application process
A single representative may initiate the application process, even if they do not yet have a partner (or working group)
One of the key goals of the GovTech Global Alliance is to build and support international relationships, knowledge sharing, and resource development. In our application process, we value the motivation and bandwidth of individual members to participate in various activities and focus areas. The structure of requiring (a minimum of) two representatives as criteria of membership allows for the understanding that high-level faculty or department heads may have limited availability. Out of all participating representatives, only one individual is required to regularly attend meetings or be directly involved in general programming.
Time Commitment
The time commitment of academic members may vary on the basis of opt-in committee roles, events, and seasonal or ongoing projects. The GovTech Global Alliance is designed to align with the research capacity or faculty objectives of our members and support a diverse range of professional and personal bandwidth constraints.
It is reasonable to expect that an actively participating member may cumulatively spend a minimum of 2 hours per month to stay engaged with meetings, communication, and reading materials. Keep in mind, only one individual from an academic member is required to maintain active participation. This time commitment might increase for some time periods depending on program activities (such as publishing or grant workflows) and your level of involvement.
As we are a global network, we do our best to accommodate and rotate time zones and share asynchronous documentation, although it is likely some activities may take place outside of standard working hours for some participants.
Mission Alignment
GovTech Global Alliance strongly centers equity, open access, and sustainability as bedrock values and practices. Before applying, please take a moment to familiarise yourself with our Mission, Vision, and Principles.
What to expect from the application process
The first step toward becoming a member is to fill out an inquiry form below.
This step is intentionally quick and easy. If you’re curious and want to connect, it’s OK to submit an inquiry form as an individual without yet organizing a full academic member group.
When we receive your inquiry form, someone from our team will reach out to coordinate a video call in a time zone that’s convenient for you.
We’re sure you have a lot of questions, and the best way to get to know each other is with an informal conversation. This will also allow us to provide clarity and more information you can share with your larger collaboration network, faculty, or advisory group.
If it’s a preliminary fit, we’ll provide a second-phase application form. This phase requires that you apply as an academic member-pair or member-group. If necessary, GovTech Global Alliance can provide letters of recommendation to assist with organising.
The answers to your questionnaire will be circulated among other members of the GovTech Global Alliance.
After reviewing your questionnaire, the next step will be to match you with one or two other member organizations for a virtual meet and greet.
Factors that influence the match-matching process include key challenge area alignment, shared goals, member availability, and time zone considerations.
After the match-making call, successful member applications will be referred to the GovTech Global Alliance governing board.
You’ll receive an email welcoming you to join the Alliance, in addition to other onboarding information to access private virtual spaces.
For your first meeting, we will support your team to prepare for a welcome/onboarding call to meet other members, highlight your agenda, and build connections within the GovTech Global Alliance.
From start to finish, this process may take as little as 3 weeks and up to 6 months from inquiry to onboarding. If you have a specific motivation to expedite the interview and application series, please let us know in your inquiry form.