OECD Co-operative Research Programme Research Fellowships 2027: Funded 6-to-26-Week International Research Visits for Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries Scientists

OECD Co-operative Research Programme Research Fellowships 2027: Funded 6-to-26-Week International Research Visits for Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries Scientists

If you are a scientist working on food, farming, forests, or fisheries and you have wanted to spend a focused stretch of time in another country’s leading lab, field station, or research institute, the OECD Co-operative Research Programme (CRP) Research Fellowships exist for exactly that. The programme funds individual research scientists to travel abroad for between six and twenty-six weeks to carry out a defined project with a host institution, then bring the knowledge, methods, and collaborations back home. Applications for fellowships funded in 2027 are open now, and the deadline is 10 September 2026 (midnight, Paris time).

This guide is built from the OECD’s own description of the Co-operative Research Programme and its call for fellowship applications. It explains what the fellowship actually pays for, who is eligible, how the three research themes shape a competitive proposal, how the application and selection process works, and how to prepare an application that a scientific review panel will rank highly. The CRP is a well-established, government-backed scheme rather than a one-off announcement, so the effort you put into understanding it now can pay off across more than one annual cycle.

Key Details at a Glance

What the CRP Is and Why It Funds Research Visits

The Co-operative Research Programme sits within the OECD’s work on sustainable agricultural and food systems. Its purpose is to strengthen the scientific knowledge base that feeds into future policy decisions on the sustainable use of natural resources across food, agriculture, forests, and fisheries. Rather than funding large multi-year grants, the CRP invests in two focused instruments: sponsorship for international conferences, workshops, and symposia; and individual research fellowships that move scientists between countries.

The fellowship stream is deliberately about mobility. The programme’s logic is that a researcher who spends a concentrated block of time embedded in a foreign institution — learning a technique, using a specialised facility, accessing a unique dataset or field site, or co-developing a method with a counterpart team — brings back more than a set of results. They build durable international collaborations, transfer skills to their home institution, and help align research effort across borders on shared problems such as climate adaptation and food security. That is why the CRP funds the visit itself: the point is the exchange, not just the output.

Because the CRP is funded by its member governments and coordinated by the OECD Secretariat in Paris, it carries the credibility of an intergovernmental programme. A CRP fellowship is a recognisable line on a scientific CV, and the network it plugs you into is genuinely international.

The Three Research Themes That Frame Every Application

Every fellowship proposal must fit within the CRP’s research agenda, which is organised around three themes. The programme operates on a five-year cycle and periodically reviews and updates the themes and their priority areas to keep pace with developments in agriculture, food, fisheries, and forestry. For the current cycle the themes are:

• Theme 1 — Managing natural capital for the future. Research that helps ensure the availability and quality of natural resources: soil, water, biodiversity, forests, fish stocks, and the ecosystems that underpin food production. Projects here often address sustainable and resilient productivity growth, biodiversity, carbon sequestration in agriculture, forestry and land use, and reducing emissions from agriculture and food systems.
• Theme 2 — Managing risks in a connected world. Research that helps anticipate, pre-empt, and cope with the many risks that hit agricultural systems and food security, from climate shocks and extreme weather to pests, disease, and the ripple effects of a globally connected food system. Resilience is the organising idea.
• Theme 3 — Transformational technologies and innovation. Research on the technologies, tools, and innovations that make step changes possible — advances that can genuinely shift how food is produced, how forests and fisheries are managed, and how sustainability goals are met.

Before you write anything, decide which theme your project belongs to and read the current priority areas within it. Reviewers want to see that your proposed visit does not just sit adjacent to a theme but advances one of its specific priorities. A proposal that names its theme, connects to a stated priority, and explains why an international visit is the right way to make progress is far stronger than one that treats the themes as background decoration.

Who Is Eligible

The fellowship is aimed at research scientists working in agriculture, food, forestry, or fisheries. Eligibility centres on two things: the nature of your work and where you are based.

• You are a research scientist in an eligible field. The CRP funds people actively doing research in the biological and natural-resource sciences relevant to sustainable food and agricultural systems, broadly defined to include forestry and fisheries.
• You are a resident of a participating country. Fellowships are open to residents of the countries that participate in the CRP. As of the 2027 cycle there are 31 participating members, with Brazil becoming eligible from 1 July 2026 as it joins the programme. Reported participating countries include Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, the Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States, with Brazil added from mid-2026.

Two membership details matter specifically for 2027 funding. Brazil’s accession from 1 July 2026 makes Brazilian residents eligible for fellowships funded in 2027. Türkiye’s participation is reported to end in late December 2026, which affects eligibility for the 2027 round. Ukraine has been in an accession stage; prospective applicants based there should contact the CRP Secretariat to confirm their status before applying. Because membership can change from cycle to cycle, always confirm your country’s current status on the official OECD page before you invest time in an application.

Importantly, the visit must be international: you travel from your country of residence to a host institution in another participating country. A CRP fellowship is not for research at home, and it is not simply a travel grant to any destination — it is support to embed with a specific host abroad for a specific project.

What the Fellowship Covers

The fellowship funds an international research visit of between 6 and 26 weeks, covering the costs of travelling to and living in the host country for the duration of the stay. The OECD’s public call describes the award as funding to undertake international research visits rather than publishing a fixed headline figure; the precise travel and subsistence allowances are set by the programme’s guidelines and are confirmed to successful applicants. Because the exact amounts are not stated on the public call page, treat any specific dollar or euro figure you see on third-party sites with caution and rely on the official fellowship guidelines for the numbers that will apply to your visit.

What is clear is the shape of the support: it is designed to make a focused research stay financially feasible for an individual scientist, not to fund a full salary, a research team, consumables, or equipment purchases. Plan your project around what a funded personal research visit can realistically achieve in a few weeks to a few months.

How to Apply

Applications are submitted through the OECD’s online application platform for the Co-operative Research Programme. While the platform will define the exact fields, a competitive CRP fellowship application typically requires you to assemble the following well before the deadline:

1. A clear research proposal. State the scientific question, why it matters for sustainable food and agricultural systems, which CRP theme and priority area it addresses, and what you will do during the visit. Be concrete about methods, milestones, and the deliverable.
2. A confirmed host and an invitation. You need a host institution in another participating country that has agreed to receive you. A letter of invitation from the host — confirming the dates, the facilities or datasets you will access, and their support for the work — is central. Line this up early; a strong, specific invitation is one of the clearest signals of a feasible project.
3. Your CV. A concise academic CV showing your research track record and your capacity to carry out and benefit from the proposed visit.
4. Practical details of the visit. Proposed dates and duration (within the 6-to-26-week window), and a realistic plan for the travel and stay.
5. Institutional backing. Support from your home institution, since you will be away for a defined period and expected to bring the results and collaboration back.

Submit through the official platform, and give yourself a buffer of at least a week before the 10 September 2026 deadline to handle account setup, document uploads, and any last-minute questions to the Secretariat.

Timeline and Deadline

The key date for the 2027 funding round is 10 September 2026, at midnight Paris (Central European) time. Applications received after that cut-off will not be considered. After the deadline, proposals go through scientific evaluation, and awards are made for fellowships to be taken up during 2027. Build your own schedule backward from September 2026:

• By early summer 2026: identify your theme and priority area, and approach potential host institutions abroad.
• Mid-summer 2026: secure a written invitation from your host and confirm your proposed dates.
• August 2026: finalise the proposal and CV, obtain home-institution support, and complete the online forms.
• Early September 2026: submit, leaving margin before the 10 September cut-off.

Because the CRP runs on an annual cycle, if you miss the 2027 round the programme is very likely to open again for a subsequent year — but the themes and country membership may have shifted, so re-check the official page rather than assuming everything carries over.

How to Build a Competitive Proposal

Reviewers on an international scientific panel are weighing many strong applications, so clarity and fit win. A few principles consistently separate fundable proposals from also-rans:

• Make the international dimension essential, not incidental. The single best justification is that the work can only (or can best) be done at the host: a unique facility, an irreplaceable field site, a dataset, a species population, or a method the host team pioneered. If the same project could be done at home, the case for a mobility fellowship is weak.
• Anchor explicitly to a theme and priority area. Name the theme, name the priority, and show the link. Do not make the panel guess where your work fits in the CRP agenda.
• Be realistic about scope. Six to twenty-six weeks is enough for a focused piece of work, a method transfer, a joint experiment, or a well-defined data campaign — not a full multi-year programme. Propose something you can genuinely deliver in the time.
• Show the collaboration outlasts the visit. Panels value fellowships that seed continuing partnerships, joint publications, shared methods, or reciprocal exchanges. Spell out what happens after you return.
• Demonstrate host commitment. A specific, enthusiastic invitation letter that names dates, facilities, and a named collaborator carries far more weight than a generic willingness to host.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Leaving the host arrangement too late. Without a confirmed, willing host and an invitation, the application is not viable. This is the step most likely to derail a strong scientist, so start it first.
• Ignoring country eligibility changes. Membership shifts between cycles. Confirm your country of residence is a current participant for the 2027 round — this matters especially for Brazil (newly eligible), Türkiye (participation ending in late 2026), and Ukraine (accession stage; contact the Secretariat).
• Treating it as a generic travel grant. The CRP funds a defined research project abroad within its themes, not conference trips, sabbaticals, or home-country research.
• Vague deliverables. “Explore collaboration opportunities” is not a project. Panels reward specific questions, methods, and outputs.
• Inventing the funding figure. Since the public call does not publish exact allowance amounts, rely on the official fellowship guidelines rather than numbers repeated on aggregator sites.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need a PhD? The programme is aimed at research scientists. There is no substitute for reading the official eligibility guidance for the current round, but the target audience is active researchers in the relevant fields rather than undergraduate or early taught-degree students.

Can I visit any country I like? No — the host must be in a country that participates in the CRP, and it must be different from your country of residence. The visit is an exchange between participating members.

How long can the visit be? Between 6 and 26 weeks. You choose a duration within that window that fits your project.

Does the fellowship pay a salary? It funds the research visit (travel and living costs), not a full salary, a team, or equipment. Plan a project scaled to individual, time-limited support.

When would I actually travel? Applications submitted by 10 September 2026 are for fellowships funded in 2027, so the visit itself would typically take place during 2027, on dates agreed with your host.

What if my country’s status is unclear? Contact the OECD CRP Secretariat before applying. This is especially relevant for applicants in accession-stage or transitioning countries.

Official Links and Next Steps

Start on the OECD’s Co-operative Research Programme pages, specifically the “Applications for Fellowships” section, which hosts the current call, the fellowship guidelines, the list of participating countries, and the online application platform: https://www.oecd.org/en/about/programmes/co-operative-research-programme/crp-applications-for-fellowships.html. The main programme page — https://www.oecd.org/en/about/programmes/co-operative-research-programme.html — gives the broader context on the themes and the CRP’s role. Note that these official OECD pages open normally in a web browser even though they block some automated requests.

Your practical next steps are simple and time-sensitive: confirm your country is a participating member for the 2027 round, identify the theme and priority area your work fits, and reach out now to a potential host institution abroad so you can secure an invitation in good time. With a confirmed host and a focused, theme-aligned proposal, you will be well placed to submit a strong application before the 10 September 2026 deadline.