Fellowship
OHT Community Building Fellowship
Supporting community builders to grow thriving, purpose-led communities in health innovation.
Applications will be open on a rolling basis from mid-September 2026.
Build a community without doing it alone.
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The OHT Community Building Fellowship is a practical, peer-supported programme for people who want to grow inclusive, purpose-led communities in health innovation.
Fellows are the people who host, connect, welcome, organise, experiment and help OHT communities become places people want to come back to.
Their work helps OHT back people too often unheard, push for products that work fairly and shape better practice across health innovation.
This is not a traditional leadership course. It is practical, peer-supported and community-led.
Less “stand on a stage and be impressive.”
More “bring people together, learn as you go and make something useful happen.”
What is the Fellowship?
The OHT Community Building Fellowship is for people who want to build or lead an OHT community.
It is designed for the doers, the connectors, the organisers, the thoughtful hosts, the generous introducers and the people who keep saying, “Someone should really create a space for this.”
An OHT Community Building Fellow, or OHT Fellow for short, help grow communities that are welcoming, useful and rooted in purpose.
Fellows are not just participants in the OHT ecosystem. They shape it.
Who it is for
We welcome applications from anyone passionate about building inclusive communities in health innovation, whatever your background, discipline or career stage.
You don't need to have run a community before, or have a perfectly colour-coded five-year plan (although we will admire this greatly!).
You just need to be curious, generous and willing to show up for others.
What Fellows do
As a Fellow, you might:
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host events, meetups or conversations
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welcome new people into a community
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experiment with formats and ideas
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connect members, speakers, partners and collaborators
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support communications and follow-up
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share updates and learning with other Fellows
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find partners, community members and collaborators
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support storytelling, campaigns, resources or practical outputs
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help turn community insight into useful opportunities or wider influence
You will probably also send friendly nudges, make slightly optimistic plans and discover that community-building is both glorious and occasionally held together by calendar invites.
Apply to become a
OHT Community Building Fellow
Track A: Join an existing
OHT community
Support and grow a community that already exists.
This could mean helping with events, communications, partnerships, welcoming, storytelling or the day-to-day care that keeps a community alive.
Good if you want to contribute to something already moving, learn the ropes and help a community become stronger.
Track B: Start a new
OHT community
Start a new community with support from OHT.
This could be a place-based community, a topic or practice community, an identity, stage or affinity community, or a community built around a shared question.
Good if you have spotted a gap, felt a pull or keep thinking, “This really should exist.”
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In a bit more detail...
As an OHT Fellow, you can expect:
✨ Practical sessions covering topics such as inclusive event design, community communications, facilitation, and public speaking.
🤝 A chance to learn alongside other Fellows and community builders facing similar challenges and opportunities.
🛠️ Space to explore what your community needs, try new approaches, and turn ideas into action.
📚 Real-world learning focused on the day-to-day work of community building, not abstract leadership jargon in a fancy hat.
🧠 A collaborative space to develop practical resources with fellow Fellows, based on what communities genuinely need.The Fellowship is designed to support both your community and your own growth as a builder, organiser and connector.
Nobody should have to build the thing alone in a cupboard with a cold cup of tea. Absolutely not.
Being an OHT Fellow comes with shared responsibility.
Fellows are expected to commit to the programme and play an active role in building and sustaining their community or initiative.
This includes:
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taking part in Fellowship sessions
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joining monthly All-Fellows calls
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sharing regular updates on progress and challenges
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contributing to the wider Fellows community
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communicating honestly about capacity or blockers
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modelling OHT’s values, Code of Conduct and community spirit
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helping create welcoming, useful and inclusive spaces
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The Fellowship is supportive, practical and human.
Nobody is expected to be a superhero. Capes optional, burnout not encouraged.
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OHT communities can grow around many things.
You might want to build a community around:
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a city or region
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a health topic
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a professional practice
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a gap in the sector
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a shared identity
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a career stage, such as students or early-career people
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lived experience
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a question that keeps coming up
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a type of health innovation that needs better conversations
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a group of people who do not usually get to meet
You do not need to have all the answers before applying. The Fellowship helps you shape the idea.
Bring the spark. We will help with the kindling.
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If you are not sure where your community idea fits, try thinking about the 3 Ps.
Is your community about people...creating space for voices, identities, experiences or roles that need more support or visibility?
Is it about products...improving how tools, technologies or services are designed, tested, discussed or used in order to be more equitable?
Is it about practice...changing how health innovation happens through ethics, co-design, collaboration, research, policy, community-action and better ways of working?
It might be one of these. It might be all three. It might start as one and become another. Communities can be like that you see…Delightfully disobedient.
The OHT Fellowship is for people who want to bring people together and help make health, care and life sciences more equitable, inclusive and accessible.
You don’t need a particular job title, level of seniority, professional background or fancy collection of acronyms after your name. We’re much more interested in how you work with people, what you care about and what you’d like to contribute.
We’re looking for people who:
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Share OHT’s vision and are committed to our Code of Conduct
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Care about building equitable, inclusive and accessible communities
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Have some experience of bringing people together, organising things or making ideas happen
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Take a collaborative approach to community building
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Want to contribute to OHT, not just add “Fellow” to their LinkedIn bio 👀
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Have the time and energy to participate actively in the Fellowship
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Have a clear reason for wanting to join an existing OHT community or start building a new one
Community-building experience can take lots of different forms. It doesn’t need to have been part of your job, and you definitely don’t need to have called yourself a “community builder” before.
Before applying, have a read of our Philosophy and Code of Conduct - as well as the Fellowship Charter. They’re a big part of how we build communities and how we review Fellowship applications.
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Applications are open on a rolling basis, which means there’s no big scary deadline day to worry about.
Once you submit your application, the OHT team will respond to it within 14 days. We’ll look at your application against our Fellowship criteria (see 'Who should apply?') and consider whether the Fellowship feels like a good fit for you and for the community.
Sometimes an application leaves us wanting to know a little more. If that happens, we may invite you to a short one-to-one or small-group chat before making a decision. This isn’t a secret extra interview round. It’s simply a chance for us to get to know you a little better, hear more about your ideas and answer any questions you have too.
Existing OHT Fellows may volunteer to help review applications and share their perspectives. Final decisions about Fellowship applications are made by the OHT core team.
Whatever the outcome, we’ll let you know. We know people put time, thought and a little bit of themselves into applications, so we aim to make the process clear, thoughtful and human.
First of all: hooray! 🎉
We usually welcome new Fellows in small groups, where possible. Starting together means you get to meet some fellow newbies straight away, rather than being ceremonially released into Slack alone.
Our onboarding is practical rather than a giant presentation about everything OHT has ever done. We’ll help you get comfortable with our Slack and Notion spaces, show you where useful things live, introduce you to the Fellowship community and help you work out your next steps.
And you don’t have to sit patiently in a virtual waiting room until onboarding. Once you’ve been accepted, you can join Fellowship calls and start exploring the Fellowship documentation before your onboarding session.
If there aren’t enough new Fellows for a group session in a particular month, we may arrange onboarding a little differently. We’ll always let you know what’s happening.
The Fellowship works because Fellows show up for each other.
As an active OHT Fellow, we ask you to join our monthly Fellows call and stay connected with what’s happening across the community. These calls are a chance to share what you’re working on, ask for help, swap ideas and learn from other Fellows around the world.
Of course, humans have lives. Sometimes you won’t be able to make a call, and that’s completely fine. If you miss one, we’ll ask you to share a quick update via Slack covering your biggest win, biggest block and what’s coming next month, so everyone can still keep up with what you’re doing.
If you miss two out of three calls in a quarter, someone from the OHT core team will check in with you. This isn’t detention. It’s a conversation about what’s going on, what support might help and whether being an active Fellow still works for you right now.
We’ll periodically ask existing Fellows to reconfirm their commitment to the Fellowship and re-sign the Fellow Charter. This helps us make sure everyone knows what they can expect from OHT, and what the community can expect from them.