OWSD Elsevier Foundation Awards 2021 for Early-Career Women Scientists in Developing Countries

Application Deadline: 30th September 2020

Eligible Countries: 

• Africa: Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Dem. Rep. Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Niger, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe.
• Arab Region: Djibouti, Palestine (West Bank & Gaza Strip), Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, Yemen.
• Asia and the Pacific: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Kiribati, Lao People’s Dem. Rep., Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Timor-Leste, Tuvalu, Vanuatu.
• Latin America and the Caribbean: Bolivia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Paraguay.

To be taken at (country): USA

About the Award: Launched by The Elsevier Foundation, TWAS and OWSD, the Awards reward and encourage women working and living in developing countries in the early stages of their scientific careers. Awardees must have made a demonstrable impact on the research environment both at a regional and international level and have often overcome great challenges to achieve research excellence.
Nominations are invited from senior academics, including OWSD members, TWAS Fellows, ICTP visiting scientists and staff, national science academies, national research councils and heads of departments/universities both in developing and developed countries.

Type: Award, Research

Eligibility: The applicant must be a female scientist who has received her PhD within the previous ten years. The eligible subject fields for the 2020 awards include:

• Civil engineering
• Electrical engineering, electronic engineering
• Telecommunications/information engineering / Software engineering
• Computer science
• Mechanical engineering
• Chemical engineering
• Materials engineering
• Medical engineering
• Environmental engineering
• Environmental biotechnology
• Industrial biotechnology
• Nano technology

In addition, the applicant must have lived and worked in one of the following science and technology lagging countries above for at least 5 of the last 15 years:
Please note that an applicant, at the time of application, must NOT have an active research grant or fellowship with The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) or have already submitted an application for a TWAS programme within the same given year. Only one application per year is possible across all TWAS and OWSD programmes. Applicants will not be eligible to visit another institution in that year under the TWAS Visiting Professor programmes. An exception is made only for the head of an institution who invites an external scholar to share his/her expertise under the TWAS Visiting Professor programmes; she may still apply for another programme.

Selection Criteria: Applications will be judged in terms of:

• Scientific merit (eg. quality of publications)
• International and regional impact (eg. invitations to present or chair at meetings; organization or participation on workshops; collaborations with scientists from other countries; national or regional awards received)
• Capacity building – local, national and regional (eg. evidence of running MSc or PhD training programmes; developing and providing resources for students and young researchers; mentoring activities).

Evidence of innovation will be considered favourably.

Number of Awardees: 5 Awards. One woman is awarded for each of five regions in the developing world: Latin America and the Caribbean; East and South-East Asia and the Pacific; the Arab region; Central and South Asia; and Sub-Saharan Africa (see the list of countries in Africa above)

Value of Award:

• Cash prize of USD 5,000.
• All-expenses-paid trip to attend the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting, which will take place on 13-16 February 2020 in Seattle.

The 5 awards will be distributed as follows: one for each of the four regions of the developing world, plus an additional ¨floating” award for an outstanding candidate from any of these regions.

Duration of Award: Not stated

How to Apply: Applications are invited from women scientists from the eligible developing countries and they must be made online.
Applications must include:

• Candidate’s curriculum vitae
• Full list of publications
• At least one (preferably two) reference letter(s)
• Endorsement statement from a senior academic scientist (e.g. OWSD members, TWAS Fellows, visiting scientists and staff of The International Centre for Theoretical Physics – ICTP, national science academies, national research councils and heads of departments/universities, both in developing and developed countries).

Please note that the endorser cannot also be a referee.

Visit Awards Webpage for details