PhD Visiting Fellowships Program
AfricaLics – the African Network for Economics of Learning, Innovation and Competence Building Systems is now looking for suitable PhD student candidates from universities in African countries to participate in the AfricaLics PhD Visiting Fellowship Programme (2021 batch) focused on Innovation and Development. The programme allows successful candidates a study period of five month based at the Department of Political Science, Faculty of Social Science, Aalborg University, Denmark. The Call is made at a time of worldwide uncertainty due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but we expect that it will be possible to implement the programme as envisaged some time during 2021 and therefore urge students to apply despite of the uncertainties.
Within the AfricaLics community, innovation is broadly defined as spanning from “new to the world inventions” to the diffusion and use of technology new to the user or context in which it is introduced and includes competence building among users of innovation. Technology here can mean both a physical product as well as a process or new way of doing things. Innovation and Development Studies research as defined by the AfricaLics network includes the study and management of processes that link technological and social innovation with development. This includes studies and improved understandings of how learning and competence building systems contribute to development processes.
Scholars in the field may have a background in economics and/or other social sciences (Sociology, Political Science, Science and Technology Policy, Geography, History or Development Studies), but some also work within the STEM (science, technology, engineering or mathematics) subjects or even manufacturing. They work within a broad range of areas including energy and sustainable development/transformation, health, agriculture, manufacturing and work organisation, big data and the fourth industrial revolution. To understand more about the field of innovation and development and see if your work fits within this research area, please look at the papers published in relevant journals including (but not only) the following: Research Policy, Innovation and Development, African Journal of Science, Technology, Innovation and Development, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Technology in Society. Journal of Product Innovation Management, Technovation, Industry and Innovation
About the AfricaLics Visiting PhD Fellowship Programme
The aim of the visiting fellowship programme and the scholarships is to help African PhD students working in the field of Innovation and Development to strengthen their academic/research qualifications; improve quality of their dissertations and prepare for a career in innovation and development either within academia or outside (e.g. in the private sector or in government/policy making).
The visiting fellowship programme does this by increasing the international mobility and level of exposure of the PhD students to international knowledge in the field of innovation and development. The programme forms part of the efforts by AfricaLics to contribute to the development of a vibrant research community in Africa in this emerging and highly multidisciplinary field. The Swedish Development Agency, Sida (Stockholm) provides funding for the visiting scholarships as part of the project Enhancing research capacity on Innovation and Development in Africa through the African Network on Learning, Innovation and Competence Building Systems (AfricaLics) – Phase II (2017-2021).
Eligibility and selection criteria
The scholarship option is open to PhD students from countries classified by the DAC as low and lower-middle income countries in Africa whose studies – irrespective of sectoral discipline – focus on innovation and development. Female PhD students are particularly encouraged to apply as AfricaLics endeavours to contribute to increasing the currently low number of female scholars in Innovation and Development research studies in Africa. Likewise, PhD students from low-income countries are particularly encouraged to apply as AfricaLics endeavours to increase research capacity in Innovation and Development in low-income countries in Africa.
Applicants must be enrolled as PhD students at African universities and must have completed their first year of PhD studies by December 2020. A maximum of four visiting scholarships are available for 2021. The visiting scholarship is complementary to the studies of the PhD students and applicants must already have secured basic funding for their PhD studies from other sources (e.g. African governments, other organisations, self-financing).
The programme gives priority to students working on topics related to the research themes identified by the AfricaLics network as important to the future of Africa.
For more information click "LINK TO ORIGINAL" below.
This opportunity has expired. It was originally published here:
https://www.africalics.org/visiting-phd-fellowship-programme/