FIELDWORK / by Earth5R
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The global standard for verified student work

Real work.
Verified.
On the record.

FIELDWORK is where the world's most driven students do real fieldwork, get it independently verified, and carry a permanent public record that universities everywhere can trust and search.

Apply and start See how it works

Rolling admissions. Start the week you're accepted, no waiting for a batch.

Students and mentors at Powai Lake, Mumbai, holding plastic caps collected from the lake beside bags of collected plastic
Powai Lake, Mumbai A student project that turned plastic collected from the lake into 450 benches and desks for municipal schools, with the Swiss Air Staff Foundation.
Affiliation

The Earth5R Field Verified model is part of the UNFCCC Global Innovation Hub Systemic Innovation Workshop.

Trusted by institutions

Earth5R is the preferred partner
for elite universities and research organisations,
for Global South fieldwork and research.

Top global universities, UN bodies and global research networks come to Earth5R to run real field projects across the Global South: research and action, ground data and intelligence, and field-tested methodologies. That on-the-ground reach is hard to build and harder to copy, and it is the same infrastructure FIELDWORK fellows plug into.

United Nations Technology Innovation Labs (UNTIL)
Funded Earth5R's fieldwork in partnership with VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, with the results written up as a research paper.
Plastics in Society Hub
Field partner in a global plastics research network led by Brunel University London with Imperial College London and universities across several continents.
University of Warwick
River-plastics field research in India, delivering ground data and on-site methodology.
National Geographic
A field project delivered on the ground with National Geographic.
Ganga River Programme
Advisory role on plastic pollution in the Ganga, one of the world's most consequential river systems.
UNESCO Green Citizen
A recognised UNESCO Green Citizen initiative for community-led environmental action.

Every project like these deepens the ground intelligence, data and field methods that make Earth5R the layer institutions, and now students, build real work on.

Background verification

Ask whether a fellow really did the work and was genuinely part of these Earth5R projects, and it confirms. The background verification of work and association that universities and scholarships increasingly expect.

Recognition

Backed by the institutions that set the standard.

UNFCCC Global Innovation Hub
MIT Solve
New York University
Earth5R
UNESCOIndia
United Nations
GoogleTop 15
MozillaData Collective
Earth5R Advisory Council
Ovais Sarmad
Ovais Sarmad
Former Deputy Exec. Secretary, UNFCCC
Ouided Bouchamaoui
Ouided Bouchamaoui
Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
Dr Julie Newman
Dr Julie Newman
Director of Sustainability, MIT
Marine Ragnet
Marine Ragnet
Researcher, NYU
Track record

Real work.
Real recognition.

The model behind FIELDWORK is built on years of real deployment in the field, and led by a founder recognised on the world's biggest stages.

Volunteers running a field waste audit with the Earth5R app
In the field
A waste audit logged live on the Earth5R app
Saurabh Gupta with President Emmanuel Macron
Paris
With President Emmanuel Macron · Young Leader India–France Award
Saurabh Gupta presenting Earth5R at Google
Google
Presenting Earth5R at Google's Build with AI
TEDx

Two talks on
the TEDx stage.

Earth5R's founder, Saurabh Gupta, has given two TEDx talks, one at Panthéon-Assas University in Paris and one in Mumbai.

TEDx · Panthéon-Assas University, Paris
Saurabh Gupta · Earth5R Founder & Chief Mentor
TEDx · Mumbai
Saurabh Gupta · Earth5R Founder & Chief Mentor
What you get

How this actually
helps you.

Every other programme hands you a project to do on the side. FIELDWORK puts you inside real Earth5R science on the ground, and leaves you with a record that holds up to global standards.

You join real science, not a simulation
You work on a live Earth5R field research project already on the ground, not a practice project invented to fill a form.
Work alongside scientists from NASA, Columbia and NYU
Researchers running real studies guide your work, and your project sits inside theirs. You're held to the standard of real science.
A record universities can actually verify
Independently verified and publicly checkable, so your work is proof, not just a claim.
CAS that stands up to scrutiny and global standards
Genuine, independently verified work that meets a real external standard, and makes your CAS hours actually count.
A spike, not a padded profile
Real, in-depth work carries far more weight than a long list of short activities, especially now that universities are sceptical of claims they can't verify.
Real results you can show
A deployed project with measured impact, documented and public, not just a certificate of attendance.
The Method

One method.
Four phases.

Every fellow moves through the same demanding sequence. Each phase is gated and independently assessed, so what ends up on the record is real, not self-reported.

01
Observe & Map
Go into the field, gather primary data, and map the real system before proposing anything.
02
Frame & Design
Find the root cause, not the obvious symptom, and frame a problem worth solving.
03
Model
Build a working model with an AI stack, rapid-build tools, and applied data science.
04
Build & Deploy
Build a working solution that creates measurable impact, then get it independently verified, documented and published.
Inside a fellowship

Months of immersion,
not a workshop.

A fellowship runs across a full term, not an afternoon. Here is one fellow's arc, phase by phase, from the first field visit to a deployed, independently verified result.

Sample fellow · Fellow tier
Ananya R.
Grade 11 · Mumbai · IB Diploma
Mission
Household waste segregation in Ward K/E, Mumbai
Weeks 1–4
01Observe & Map

Twelve field visits across the ward. She surveyed 140 households, walked the collection route with municipal workers, and mapped exactly where segregation breaks down. No solutions yet, only primary data from the ground.

Gate cleared · A mapped system, evidenced by real field data
Weeks 5–9
02Frame & Design

She analysed the data and rejected the obvious answer. The issue wasn't "lack of awareness", households knew, but had no separate bins and no feedback loop. She reframed the problem around that root cause across three rounds of mentor review.

Gate cleared · A root-cause problem that survives challenge
Weeks 10–15
03Model

She built a working segregation-tracking tool using an AI stack and applied data science, then piloted it with fifteen households. Two versions failed before one that people actually used.

Gate cleared · A working model, tested with real users
Weeks 16–22
04Build & Deploy

She deployed across four housing societies for six weeks, measured the change in segregation rates, documented what worked and what didn't, and published a permanent public record anyone can verify.

Gate cleared · A deployed intervention with measured results, on the record
The result: a permanent, verifiable public recordTwenty-two weeks of real work, independently assessed at every gate
fieldwork.earth5r.org/fellows/2026a/0147

And this is one cycle. Fellows return each year, taking on more scope, ownership and rigour, from Grade 9 through Grade 12, so the record compounds into a multi-year body of real work.

Mentorship

Mentored by real
scientists.

The mentored track isn't automated feedback. Fellows are guided by working scientists and researchers who hold their work to a real standard.

Lead Mentor
NASA & Columbia University
A PhD scientist guiding every fellow's work

FIELDWORK's lead mentor is a working scientist with research experience at NASA and Columbia University, guiding fellows' projects and holding the work to the standard of real science. Full profile to follow.

For students

Students prove it.

Do real fieldwork, clear each phase, and build a permanent public record that stands up to scrutiny anywhere you apply.

Real field projects
Independently verified
Permanent public record
Merit-based mentorship
A spike, in any field
For universities

Universities find it.

Search a registry of verified, opted-in student work. Every record is checkable, so what you see is what a student actually did.

Search verified candidatesRegistry
Filter by field & regionFilters
Checkable public recordsProof
Student-controlled visibilityConsent
No unverified claimsTrust
Live research

Real science.
Not practice projects.

You don't invent a project to look busy. You join real Earth5R research already on the ground, led by working scientists, and your record carries that science with it.

A New York University researcher
Data centres, water and women
How the rise of data centres is deepening water shortages in Maharashtra, and how that burden falls on women who spend more hours fetching water. A project that links climate, water and gender on the ground.
ClimateWaterGender
A NASA and Columbia University scientist
Climate and basmati rice
How climate change is affecting basmati rice across the Gangetic Plain, and a new methodology to score rice-growing businesses on their climate impact and their effect on farmers.
ClimateAgricultureFarmers

Fellows work inside flagship projects like these, not simulations. Their documentation and their record carry the real science with them, and that is what separates one Earth5R student from another in front of a university.

Apply

Apply now, and start straight away.

Admissions are rolling and selective. Every fellow gets real supervision, and you join the Earth5R global cohort and begin the week you're accepted, no waiting for a batch.

Apply and start University access
4Phase method
AnyField of study
100%Verifiable
RollingStart any time