[Wikimedia-l] Fellowship

[Florence Devouard]

Hello

Following a conversation started on another mailing list on the meaning 
of "fellowship", I am forwarding here a question that I hope will be 
answered by someone (I can not help being curious :)).

My original question was

"I have also been wondering myself what the difference is between a 
fellow and a staff member. The only difference I could personally figure 
out is that the fellow is there for a very specific mission and for a 
fixed amount of time, whilst the staff person may have his role and 
tasks change over time and is supposingly on unlimited time (until he 
leaves or get fired). Am I correct in my interpretation or is a fellow 
something different than what I think it is ?"

I got the following answers

"From a communications perspective I have no problem defining what a 
fellow is, and what they're doing. They are receiving compensation from 
the Foundation to really focus on the work that they do, but I don't 
believe would we call them 'staff' of the Foundation, nor contractors. 
Creative Commons has fellows as well, but I've generally seen them 
communicating and carrying out work within their research or area of 
activity focus:
https://creativecommons.org/fellows

I do believe in either case a fellow does work on a specific project or 
initiative for a set period of time."


as well as

"See also 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Fellowships#What_a_Fellow_is... (and 
the following section, "What a Fellow is not...") "

and

"In other contexts, one of the important reasons why a fellow might not 
be considered "staff" of the organization providing the fellowship is 
because they would remain on the staff of whatever organization they 
were affiliated with originally. Somebody at a university who receives a 
fellowship to pursue research while on sabbatical is still primarily 
seen as part of the university. (Not that Wikimedia fellowships are 
designed for purely academic research, but the principle about 
affiliation applies nevertheless.)"

Which answers partly to my question indeed.

I would be interesting to have not only a communication/management 
perspective, but also an administrative & legal one.

Does the fellowship status implies that the WMF pays for health or 
retirement benefits (as it would for a staff member) or does the fellow 
receive a lump sum and manages by himself to pay for taxes and benefits 
depending on the country he lives in (as would a contractor) ?
Does the fellowship status implies that, should the fellow get in 
trouble, he would be considered "staff" (in terms of liability) or is he 
on his own ? (which in my terms would be "if as staff", he is covered by 
WMF insurrance versus "if as contractor", he has to pay insurrance by 
himself).

Anybody knows ?

Florence