Deadline: August 15, 2025

Past Global Changes (PAGES) announces the Inter-Africa Mobility Research Fellowship Program (African Mobility Fellowship) for African early-career scientists studying past global changes. The program aims to give limited support for travel and subsistence to early-career researchers from African countries (PhD students and postdocs at African institutions), who are interested in gaining experience in another African country. The final goal is to contribute to the development of collaborative research and the promotion of the paleoscience network within Africa.

The fellowships will be awarded for a short duration, between two and four weeks. The fellowship must be used within 12 months (awardees will have up to 12 months to take up their fellowship once awarded).

Benefits

• The program is intended to support costs associated with international travel and living expenses while abroad, i.e. flight (economy class), visa, costs of laboratory consumables (up to max. 10% of the total budget) and accommodation (subsistence and housing) costs for the period of the exchange, for the fellow only.

NOTE: Insurance will not be covered by the grant. PAGES cannot be deemed responsible if the candidate cannot travel for any reason (such as flight cancellation).

Eligibility

They invite applications from outstanding early-career scientists from African countries.

The applicants must:

• Be studying or researching past global changes.
• Be an early-career researcher either in the final stage of completing their PhD thesis/dissertation, or a postdoctoral researcher within five years of completing their PhD (including PhD holders who have not held a postdoc position).
• Citizens of an African country and currently working or doing a PhD at an African institution.
• Already working on a research topic within the scientific scope of PAGES.
• Be willing to conduct research in another African institution/country.
• Must secure the agreement of the host researcher/institution, and provide a confirmation letter from the host researcher/institution as a precondition for the award of the fellowship.
• Demonstrate that fellowship will not last for less than two weeks or more than four weeks within 12 months from the 31st of December onwards.

Application Requirements

Awardees are selected based on the merit and quality of their application, which must include:

• Completed application form, including:

– Description of proposed research and travel (max. 1000 words). Indicate how the aims and objectives of the fellowship relate to PAGES scientific scope.
– Description of the impact of the fellowship on your professional capacity development and its significance to your home institution/country (max. 200 words).
– Project timeline and outcomes (up to one month duration).
– Detailed budget in USD.

• Two letters of recommendation (one from the current academic supervisor at the home institution and one from the supervisor at the host institution).
• CV outlining the major academic and professional achievements (max 2 pages).

 

The preferred language for applications is English; however, applications in French will be accepted. Grantees will receive their grant money through a bank transfer to a bank account provided by them. After completing the fellowship, fellows must email a final report in English to PAGES. It should include a financial report, a scientific report, and a short article (650 words and one figure) to be published in Past Global Changes Magazine.

Send your completed application form to pages@pages.unibe.ch with the subject “Application PAGES African Mobility Fellowship”.

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