Dr. Daniel Muema
Postgraduate education can be prohibitively expensive, especially when you want to travel far and wide in the quest for new experiences before settling down to build a career in science. But the good news is that you don’t have to pay from your pocket. There are organizations out there that recognize the need to support early career African scientists with the hope that the training will impact the long-term developmental trajectory of the region. Of course, such training opportunities are also designed to strengthen the developmental, social and economic ties between Africa and the partnering developed countries, creating a win-win situation. The Africa Academy of Sciences is also pushing for home-grown funding schemes, especially for early career scientists at the postdoctoral level. I will be compiling information on all available funding programs for African scientists who intent to pursue postgraduate (master’s and doctoral) and postdoctoral training. For a start, I have described three major funding schemes for prospective Master’s students. Note that long-term planning is required to successfully apply for these schemes; the duration from starting the application process to the beginning of the Master’s program usually spans at least a year. Some of our members here have successfully gone through these programs. As such, I appeal to them to provide any additional information that they think the prospective African applicants would need to look out for when preparing their applications. I will be adding more schemes in due course, so feel free to also bring to my attention those schemes that you have found most useful.
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