Special Research Fund: Doctoral Scholarships for Developing Countries 2936 views

Ghent University offers Special Research Fund (BOF), to support university research groups or research centres in developing countries in their aim to grow into excellent research centres by upgrading local academic personnel.

About the scholarship:

• These grants take the form of a so called “sandwich” scholarship
• the candidate obtains a scholarship for maximum 24 months to work within a span of 48 months on an alternating basis on the PhD at Ghent University (‘North’) and at the university or research centre in a developing country (‘South’)
• Only for the periods the scholarship holder works at Ghent University the scholarship holder will receive a monthly income.
• The rest of the PhD research is done in the partner university, for which no funding is provided through this scholarship.
• For this part of the PhD research students must prove that they will be financed at their home university by either fulltime PhD scholarship or salary.
• The scholarship is open for all fields of research; however preference will be given to topics that are relevant for development.
• Applicant must find a professor from Ghent University who is willing to act as the supervisor (‘promoter’) of their PhD research and who agrees to support their application before applying only.

Duration: maximum 24 months

Eligibility:

• Applicant need to come from and have the nationality of a developing country
• Applicant must show a guarantee that he/she will be able to work on the PhD project at the partner university in a selected developing country (South). This implies that there must be a local PhD supervisor at the partner university or research center.
• Applicant must provide written statement requested from the university authorities stating that you are either a fulltime PhD student or a staff member of this university and will be sufficiently exempted from teaching or other assignments as to be able to fully concentrate on the PhD research in the South.

Scholarship value: approx. € 1.958/month; bench fee of €15.440 to cover (part of) the operational costs, as well as the travelling costs of the student and both the Ghent University and the local promoter.