Internship opportunities at the IWC

 

The Crankstart Programme provides financial support and other opportunities to UK students from lower-income households. Students who are eligible for the 2025-entry Crankstart Scholarship will be UK residents studying for their first undergraduate degree at the University of Oxford, with a household income of £32,500 or less.

 

The US Government (NOAA) has funded longer-term internships in Data Archiving and Statistics.  If further funding is secured future opportunities will be advertised here.

 

The IWC works as an Industry partner with the University of Manchester MSc Data Science programme, offering project briefs relating to Statistics and Ship Strike data for cohorts to work on in collaborative groups.  

 

The IWC also curates and lectures the Aquatic Ecology and Management Module of the CABES Masters Programme and hope to develop internship opportunities in the future. The CABES Master of Science (MSc.) programme in Managing Science-Policy-Practice Interfaces on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (SPIBES) is a two-year program open to qualified candidates from West, Central, and East Africa.

 

Self-funded Masters students are welcome to contact the Secretariat to explore projects currently available on the following subjects:

Cetacean Conservation and Governance
Review of policies on cetacean conservation and management with the aim of identifying areas/regions/countries with need for further measures, capacity building, stronger policy or policy change implementation. 

Cetacean Conservation and Governance
Review existing data with National Progress Reports (alone or in conjunction with policy from Conservation Reports) to analyse strandings/bycatch/ship strikes for better management - synthesis, does the information correlate to countries with regulations? 

Ship Strikes 
Examine the success or failure of previous and current proposals to the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and explore the reasons why.
Which proposals have resulted in government policy changes or mandatory regulation.
 

An Overlap study between identified high-risk areas and policies, IMMAs.
 

Review of Ship Strike Database: which countries have reported, which areas lack records/regulations. Also look at trade routes, reports.
 

Marine Debris 
Mapping overlap of IMMAs with known marine debris hotspots, cross mapping with existing strandings records involving marine debris/entanglement.

Review of research on levels of bycatch in Asian countries/coastal waters and mitigation techniques that have been tested. Highlight areas which have high bycatch levels and what gear types and species are involved. 

 

Whale/Dolphin Watching
Compile information for a Country Profile and/or Case Study of Whale Watching (see the IWC Whale Watching Handbook for examples). Priority Case Studies or Country Profiles will be decided at the next Scientific Committee meeting in 2026 but suggestions are welcome.

 

Gather data on existing whale and dolphin watching in Africa and any existing regulations/guidelines. What opportunities are there for whale watching as alternative livelihood, what is needed for it to be developed sustainably.

Apply the Whale Welfare Assessment Tool to real-world whale watching situations. (The Welfare AssessmentTool was endorsed at the Commission meeting IWC68 using a hypothetical whale watching case study (2018 Annex N, item 2.2)).

The southern resident killer whales in Washington, USA and the bottlenose dolphins in Bocas del Toro, Panama were proposed. These two populations are subject to intense whale watching pressure and may be suffering welfare and health impacts related to this pressure. Both locations have data relevant to the assessment tool and therefore seem ideal as pilot projects for its application. 

In 2023 It was noted that the welfare assessment tool for wild cetaceans (SC2044) (Nicol et al., 2020) has completed several published assessments and could be deployed to assess whale watching impacts. The negative interactions between killer whales and vessels (primarily sailing yachts) that are ongoing off the Iberian Peninsula are yet another example (see Annex Q, item 5.5).

Many countries in particular regions have fledgling whale watching industries. The IWC Scientific Committee periodically conducts basic regional reviews of the whale watching operations. These reviews at times identify countries where whale watching is just starting or may already be at high levels, but without regulations or guidelines. 

Examine recent regional reviews to determine which countries do not appear to have regulations or guidelines. Conduct online research to determine if this is correct or if any guidelines/regulation have been implemented along with any research activity. For those countries collate data on where, when, how, what species etc are the focus. These will be used to assist in further updates to the Whale Watching Handbook, communication with governments on best practice and developing regulations, targeted capacity building and management of the industry for cetaceans and local communities. 

Part of this project will also include follow up on previous communication with governments to ensure the IWC Whale Watching Handbook comes to the attention of the international whale watching community, including managers, operators and the public.