Deadline: September 29, 2017
The Association of African Universities (AAU) is pleased to announce the 2017 session of its Small Grants for Theses and Dissertations Programme. In line with the Association’s aim of promoting the core functions of higher education institutions, the Small Grants Programme aims to facilitate timely completion of post graduate research.
The Association of African Universities (AAU) is an international non-governmental organisation set up by universities in Africa to promote cooperation among themselves and with the international academic community. The core mandate of the AAU is to raise the quality of higher education in Africa and strengthen its contribution to Africa’s development by fostering collaboration among member institutions; providing support to their core functions of teaching, learning, research and community engagement; and facilitating critical reflection on, and consensus-building around, issues affecting higher education and the development of Africa.
Research Topics
Research topics should fall within any of the following broad themes:
- Agriculture and Food Security
- Conflict, Peace and Security
- Environment and Climate
- Health
- Higher Education
Grants
- Small grants research budgets are limited to $3,500 USD for PhD students and $2,000 USD for Masters students;
- Small grants budgets may not include indirect costs (e.g. accommodation, field trips outside the country where the research is being conducted,
Eligibility
- Applicants should be post graduate students enrolled in AAU member institutions that are in good standing on payment of their annual subscriptions;
- Post graduate students who are lecturers in AAU member institutions, and female candidates are especially encouraged to apply.
Evaluation Criteria
- Applications will be reviewed based on the following criteria:
- Relevance (the extent to which the proposed research aligns with the selected theme and addresses African development issues);
- Innovation (the extent to which the proposed activity suggests and explores creative and original approaches); and
- Feasibility (whether the project is feasible in terms of the proposed methodology, work plan and budget)
- Award of grants will be based on merit – i.e. on the strength of the application.
Application
- Applications should be submitted online.
- The review of the applications takes approximately 2 months after the deadline date.
For more information, visit AAU Small Grants for Post Graduate Theses & Dissertations.
