Austrian Development Cooperation seeks Grant Proposals for Master’s and PhD programs in Austria

Austrian Development Cooperation has issued a 3rd and final call under the Austrian Partnership Program in Higher Education & Research for Development (APPEAR) inviting proposals for strengthening academic partnerships between institutions in eligible countries and Austria, and providing grants for Master’s and PhD programs in Austria for students and professionals from eligible countries.

APPEAR is targeted at researchers, professionals and academic institutions in eligible countries and in Austria to share their knowledge and experiences, to design innovative projects targeting the general objective described above and to improve the overall standards in higher education, research and management.

Funding Themes
The activities that are eligible for grant must be related to the thematic focus of APPEAR, which are:

·         Higher education and research for development

·         Water supply and sanitation, rural development, energy, private sector development, governance and human rights

·         Poverty reduction, environment and natural resources, peace building and conflict prevention, gender equality

·         Strengthening of skills in social sciences as an instrument to systematically analyze the reasons of poverty and to empower capacities in social science research

Eligible countries
Partner institutions in the South, and participants of Master’s and PhD programs at Austrian universities, come from the following countries:

·         Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya,

·         Mozambique

·         Cape Verde, Burkina Faso, Senegal

·         Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala

·         Bhutan, Nepal

·         Palestinian Territories

Program Components

APPEAR is made up of two components focusing on the academic partnerships. However, this is closely related to Master’s and PhD programs that mainly support students and academics from already existing partnerships to implement long lasting and sustainable cooperation. Both components share the overall objective to strengthen the institutional capacity of the partners in the South.

Component 1 consists of a) academic partnerships in higher education, research and management to strengthen the institutional capacities of academic partner institutions in the South and b) preparatory funding to support researchers and institutions that do not yet have well established links and to plan and jointly write a project proposal.

In component 2, grants are made available for Master’s and PhD programs in Austria for students and professionals from eligible countries.

Last date for submission of proposals is December 31, 2011
For more information, visit this link.