Deadline: 30 June 2017
The Biosciences eastern and central Africa -International Livestock Research Institute (BecA – ILRI) Hub is currently inviting applicants for its Africa Biosciences Challenge Fund (ABCF) fellowship program 2017 with an aim to increase access for African researchers to affordable, world-class research facilities.
Mission
- Research: enabling research to harness the potential of the biosciences to contribute to increasing agricultural productivity and to improving food and nutritional safety and security.
- Education: contributing to the education and training of the next generation of African agricultural research leaders and scientists.
- Innovation: promoting the development, delivery and adoption of new technologies to address key agricultural productivity constraints
Research Areas
- Improved control of priority livestock and fish diseases
- Harnessing genetic diversity for conservation, resistance to disease and improving productivity of crops and livestock and fish (livestock focus: African indigenous breeds, particularly goats, chickens, alternative small livestock species)
- Molecular breeding for important food security crops in Africa
- Plant transformation to address food insecurity in Africa
- Plant-microbe interactions
- Tissue culture and virus indexing for production of virus-free planting materials in Africa
- Orphan/underutilized species of crops and livestock
- Crop pests, pathogens and weed management research, including biological control
- Microbial technology for improving adaptation of staple food crops and forages to biotic and abiotic stresses
- Rapid diagnostics for crop, livestock and fish diseases
- Genomics, bioinformatics and metagenomics including microbial discovery
- Studies on climate-smart forage grasses and mixed livestock-crop systems
- Microbial technology for improving adaptation of staple food crops and forages to biotic and abiotic stresses
- Soil health in agricultural systems
- Improved control of parasitic pathogens of plants (bacteria, fungi, oomycetes) that cause enormous economic losses as well as environmental damage in natural ecosystems (e.g.: Phytophthora infestans that causes potato blight)
Benefits
The fellowship will covers Research costs at the BecA-ILRI Hub, Travel, Medical insurance, Accommodation, A modest subsistence allowance, Cost of publication in open access journal.
Eligibility Criteria
- National of a BecA-ILRI Hub target country (mentioned below) are eligible to apply.
- Under special partnerships and collaborations arrangements, applicants from western and Southern Africa are considered for the fellowship.
- The applicant MUST be a researcher employed within NARS.
- Currently engaged in research in food and nutritional security or food safety in Africa, or in a research area with relevance to agriculture in Africa.
- Good working knowledge of written and spoken English.
- Completed online application form.
- A signed letter of endorsement/nomination of the application from the head of the applicant’s home institute/organization/university faculty.
How to Apply
Applicants must fill the online application form available on the via given website.
Eligible Countries: Burundi, Central African Republic, Congo Brazzaville, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Gabon, Madagascar, São Tomé and Príncipe, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan.
For more information, please visit ABCF Fellowship Program.