The LEAP Fellowship

An incubator for emerging leaders across disciplines and sectors to develop new strategies for biotechnology in the public interest.

Established through a pilot program in 2012, LEAP is an intensive year-long non-residential Fellowship program. Each year about twenty Fellows – emerging leaders working in diverse areas of biotechnology – are selected to participate. Through the program, LEAP Fellows build their skills, tools and networks to engage a spectrum of organizations involved in shaping biotechnology. The program is centered on two in-residence workshops during which Fellows work together to develop actionable strategies to address their top challenges for the practice of synthetic biology, under the guidance of world-class experts across disciplines and sectors.

Click here for an update on the 2015 Fellowship!

LEAP prepares leaders to lead by providing 5 ‘P’s:

• Proficiency: Practical knowledge of
  • (i) the technical, social, political and economic landscape shaping biotechnology
  • (ii) how this maps to current challenges in synthetic biology, and
  • (iii) skills and strategies for working across organizations to advance solutions.
• Practice: Hands-on experience in framing problems and devising solutions for real-world challenges.
• Peers: A network of people at a similar career stage to provide co-mentorship and support.
• Partners: A professional network across relevant organizations that can create an ecosystem for accelerating new ideas through mutual learning and critical resource sharing.
• Productivity: Learning by doing via creating materials and planning projects that enhance performance and engagement of broader communities of practice.

Key program components include:

• Landscaping meeting: During this three-day meeting, Fellows are introduced to the social, technical, economic, and political state of the field through presentations and roundtables with key officials from governmental, non-governmental, academic and industry organizations. The meeting is designed to provide early and broad exposure to help Fellows conceive and shape their action plan topics to address the most important issues facing the field.
• Leadership workshop: During this immersive action-oriented week-long workshop Fellows receive intensive mentoring from a world-class network of leaders from across sectors and disciplines in biotechnology. Together, they develop action plans that propose strategies to address individual and community issues. The week culminates in a presentation of action plans to a panel of potential partners and sponsors.
• Strategic action plans: Throughout the program, Fellows articulate and develop their visions and plans through the creation of strategic action plans. Working closely with other Fellows and Mentors allows rapid feedback for iterating and strengthening these plans. LEAP supports the development and early stages of deployment of plans, and publishes them at synbioleap.org.
• Catalyst grants: As a mechanism to lower earlier barriers to plan deployment, LEAP offers seed grants to the most promising plans for catalyzing positive social change. LEAP also supports Fellows’ access to capacity partners through community showcases, speaking opportunities and other mechanisms.

Program Location

To ensure that LEAP maintains a global outlook, the program features a rotating international host. Our 2015 program is in North America and our 2016 program will take place in Europe. In 2015, the landscaping meeting will take place in February in Washington DC. The leadership workshop will be held at the historic Asilomar Conference Grounds in California in June.