Deadlines: November 30 2012
Call for Pre-Proposals are invited for Postdoctoral Fellowships on Livelihood Management, Reforms and Processes of Structural Change.
This Postdoctoral Fellowship Program is funded by the Volkswagen Foundation aims at providing sustainable support for research and capacity building in Africa. It is part of the initiative “Knowledge for Tomorrow – Cooperative Research Projects in Sub-Saharan Africa”. Besides, African-European cooperation, the development and extension of trans-African academic networks in the natural and social sciences throughout the whole African continent are emphasized.
The call is part of the Foundation’s career development scheme for African researchers. Within this framework, junior and senior postdoctoral fellows develop and execute their own research projects and establish leadership responsibilities. With this program, the Foundation aims at supporting postdoctoral scientists establishing an academic career in Africa.
The call is open to all scholars from Sub-Saharan Africa active in research fields of the natural and social sciences. The project must be carried out in cooperation with a German research partner institution and/or an associated German postdoctoral fellow. This Fellowship Program is coordinated by two German senior scientists and their teams. The coordinators will support the fellows in organizing workshops, summer schools and other training elements which might be helpful to conduct their projects and to establish strong scientific networks. Interdisciplinary cooperation among the fellows will be emphasized.
This call for pre-proposals emphasizes on two extensive areas. Primarily, the research projects should deal with the question how individual or collective social actors can manage and protect resources efficiently and develop sustainable livelihood strategies under present social and environmental conditions and in view of locally and globally changing circumstances.
All projects should have a strong reference to current questions and problems concerning respective regions and/or Africa as a continent. Transcultural dimensions as well as bridging the anglophone/francophone divide in Africa could be important aspects of these projects.
The program is open to applications from disciplines of both the natural and social sciences. Funding is restricted to researchers from African countries.
This Postdoctoral Fellowship Program aims at supporting young African postdoctoral researchers in Sub-Saharan Africa
- Providing an opportunity to enhance both skills and academic qualifications
- Strengthening partnerships between African and German scholars developing and extending academic networks within Africa
The program includes both junior (up to 90,000 EUR) and senior fellowships (up to 120,000 EUR). For both types of fellowships either or both types of cooperation with a German research partner institution and/or an associated German postdoctoral fellow is mandatory. Around, 25,000 EUR for an associated German postdoctoral fellow can be applied for enhancing the exchange of scholarly expertise and aiming at a cooperation of equals.
The German fellow does not have to be associated to the cooperating German partner institution. In any case, the African fellow (junior or senior) has to reflect on the choice of the institution which he or she intends to cooperate with and the research topics covered by this cooperation. Moreover, the foundation recommends the integration of an accompanying assistance by mentors into the project.
The official grant recipient will be the academic institution in Africa where the fellow will be employed. Basic infrastructure should be provided by the African institution; the fellowship may include administrative costs for this institution up to a maximum of 6,000 EUR. The Foundation supports a good work-life-balance for scientists with children.
For further information, visit the link.
