Deadline for proposals submission:  September 20, 2017

Following the success of 1st and 2nd Edition, the Women for Africa Foundation (FMxA), in line with its mission of contributing to the development of Africa through its women, is launching the 3rd Edition of SCIENCE BY WOMEN programme, 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 main goal is to enable African women researchers and scientists to tackle the great challenges faced by Africa through research in Health and biomedicine, agriculture and food security, water, energy and climate change, mathematics, Information and Communication Technologies as well as Economic Sciences.

Women’s lives are significantly affected by the repercussions of uncontrolled development; however, social, structural and economic barriers limit their capacity to tackle the great challenges faced by the continent. The gender disparities in science and technology in both the public and private spheres affect Africa’s population as a whole. Narrowing this gap, which has severe consequences on the balanced and sustainable development of African countries, is vital to achieve long-term progress and equal growing.

The programme´s ultimate goal is to enable African women researchers to play a leading role in the transition of Africa to a knowledge-based and innovationled economy through research that can be transferred into products, processes, services and technologies having impact on people´s 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. Our associated research centres are in this 3rd edition are: the Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO, www.icfo.eu ), the Spanish National Centre for Biotechnology (CNB, www.cnb.csic.es) the Institute of Mathematical Sciences (ICMAT, www.icmat.es), the Centre for Genomic Regulation (www.crg.es), the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics (http://www.barcelonagse.eu), Vall d´Hebron Institut de Recerca (VHIR, http://en.vhir.org), Institute for Neuroscience (IN, in.umh.es/), Kronikgune Research Center (www.kronikgune.org/en/), Biocruces (bc) (www.biocruces.com), DeustoTech (http://deustotech.deusto.es/).

Each of the ten centres will host 1 senior woman researcher for a six-month fellowship. 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. 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.

For more informations and forms to fill, science.by.women@mujeresporafrica.es

African Women in Mathematics Association Website – http://africanwomeninmath.org/