Deadline: September 30, 2019
Applications for the 5th Edition of SCIENCE BY WOMEN programme are open. The Women for Africa Foundation (FMxA), in line with its mission of contributing to the development of Africa through its women, launched this program with the aim to promote African women’s leadership in scientific research and technology transfer and to foster the capacity of the research centres in their home countries.
The program’s ultimate goal is to enable African women researchers to play a leading role in the transition of Africa to a knowledge-based and innovation-led economy and thereby in the transformation of people’s daily lives. To achieve this ambitious goal, FMxA collaborates with the Spanish Centres of Excellence, whose prestige is unanimously recognized throughout Spain and internationally, thereby ensuring excellence in scientific research in various fields.
Program Content
The Science by Women program will fund a total of 15 six-month visiting senior research fellowships for 15 experienced African women researchers in 15 different international research centres of excellence based in Spain. Each of these centres will host 1 senior woman researcher with at least 3 years of post-doctoral experience for a six-month fellowship.
Each research centre will host one researcher. Here below the list of participating centres:
The preferred areas of research include:
- Health and Bio-medicine
- Energy, Water and Climate Change
- Agriculture and Food Safety
- Mathematics, Information and Communication Technologies
- Economic Science
- Physics and Materials Sciences
- Nanotechnology
Selected candidates will receive training and integration in a dynamic, multidisciplinary and highly competitive working team, where they will be able to develop their research projects and acquire complementary skills, empowering them to transfer their research results into tangible economic and social benefits.
Benefits
Successful candidates will have access to the following benefits:
- Return flight from their centre of origin to the host institution
- Living allowance of 2.400 Euros (before taxes) per month to cover accommodation, personal expenses and health and occupational accident insurance coverage.
Beneficiaries must devote themselves entirely to research at the assigned research centre and may not be beneficiaries of any other fellowship, grant, stipend or regular income during their research stay.
Beneficiaries might be asked to formalise their relationship with the research centre in writing. In compliance with local laws, the Woman for Africa Foundation or the research centre (as the case may be) will, if so required in each particular circumstance by the tax and/or social security regime, retain or withhold the compulsory amounts from the living allowances.
Women for Africa Foundation, in collaboration with the research centre, will help beneficiaries with the compulsory formalities in order to obtain the visa with Spanish Embassies and Consulates.
Eligibility
Any person who meets the following requirements can apply:
- Being a woman
- Having the nationality of an African country
- Having a PhD with at least 3 years of post-doctoral professional experience
- Current contractual relationship with a university or a public or private non-profit organization based in Africa dedicated to significant scientific research in the areas indicated above
- Excellent academic record and proven track of relevant research experience
- Solid working knowledge of English
- Proven experience leading a research group
Beneficiaries of first, second and third editions of this program are not eligible.
When applying, candidates must have already identified research groups in the host centres to confirm that their proposed research can be carried out in collaboration with those research groups and, when needed, in their laboratories.
Applications will be subjected to a rigorous selection process, evaluating the academic merits and leadership of the applicants as well as the scientific quality and expected impact of their research projects.
Application
The deadline for applications is September 30, 2020. Only applications submitted in English via the Science by Women microsite at www.mujeresporafrica.es will be accepted.
Candidates must submit the following documents:
- Letter of Interest (max. 1 page)
- Full curriculum vitae
- Fully filled form
- Brief but concise description of the project to be developed in the Spanish host centre (max. 2 pages).
Research proposals should fall within the main research strands of the chosen centre, as specified in section 6 of the Rules & Guidelines document.
For more information, visit SCIENCE BY WOMEN.
