TWAS-CNPq Postdoctoral Fellowship Programme

The National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) in Brasilia, Brazil, and TWAS offer up to 10 postdoctoral fellowships each year to young scientists from developing countries (other than Brazil) who wish to pursue postdoctoral research in natural sciences.

Deadline

28 July 2014

Partner

Brazilian Council for Scientific and Technological Development

Country

Brazil

Level

Postdoc

Minimum degree held

PhD

Duration

Minimum of 6 and maximum of 12 months

Field

01-Agricultural Sciences
02-Structural, Cell and Molecular Biology
03-Biological Systems and Organisms
04-Medical and Health Sciences incl. Neurosciences
05-Chemical Sciences
06-Engineering Sciences
07-Astronomy, Space and Earth Sciences
08-Mathematical Sciences
09-Physics

Age limit

45

Sandwich option

no

Programme Details

• TWAS-CNPq Postdoctoral Fellowships are tenable at research institutions in Brazil for a minimum period of six months to a maximum period of twelve months. They are awarded to scientists from developing countries (other than Brazil) to enable them to pursue postdoctoral research in the natural sciences.
• A list of research institutions in Brazil where TWAS-CNPq Fellowships are tenable (CAPES-Conceito 5, 6 and 7) is available for download here: CAPES List.
• CNPq will provide a standard monthly allowance which should be used to cover living costs, such as accommodation, food and health insurance. The monthly stipend will not be convertible into foreign currency.
• Information about living conditions, such as possibilities of accommodation, transportation, and any other issues related to the candidate's stay in Brazil must be obtained locally, directly from the host institution. Neither TWAS nor CNPq can provide this information.
• The research activities are developed in Portuguese in most institutions, but communication will be mainly in English.

Eligibility

Applicants for these fellowships must meet the following criteria:

• Be a maximum age of 45 years on 31 December of the application year.
• Must not hold a visa for permanent or temporary residency in Brazil or in a developed country.
• Hold a PhD degree in a field of the natural sciences.
• Be a regular employee in a developing country (other than Brazil) and hold a research assignment there.
• Provide evidence that s/he will return to her/his home country on completion of the fellowship.
• Not take up other assignments during the period of her/his fellowship.
• Provide an official acceptance letter from the host institution (please refer to the sample available at the CNPq weblink http://www.cnpq.br/web/guest/chamadas-publicas) . Only CAPES-listed (levels 5, 6 or 7) Brazilian institutions are eligible (see point 2 above).
• Prove knowledge of Portuguese or provide a certificate of proficiency in Spanish or English (if these languages are not the candidate's mother tongue).
• Have an updated Curriculum Vitae on CNPq’s Lattes Platform (see note on online applications below).
• Present a detailed research plan agreed by her/his host supervisor.
• Be financially responsible for any accompanying family members.

Submitting your application

• Applications to the TWAS-CNPq Fellowships must be submitted online only.
• The call for applications where you will find the programme details, eligibility criteria, required documents and certificates as well as the online application form is available via http://www.cnpq.br/web/guest/chamadas-publicas
• Applicants must be aware that CNPq and TWAS will not accept applications submitted by any other means except via the online application form.
• The call for applications for 2014 is currently open and will remain open until 28 July 2014. No applications will be accepted after the deadline. Therefore, it is recommended to submit your electronic application as early as possible.
• Incomplete applications will not be accepted.
• Applicants should submit the Acceptance Letter from a CAPES-listed institution to CNPq when applying. Without preliminary acceptance, the application will not be considered for selection.
• Queries concerning the call for applications to the TWAS-CNPq Fellowships programmes should be directed to: twas.ascin@cnpq.br
• Applicants should be aware that they can apply for only one fellowship per year. With the exception of theVisiting Scientists programme, all other fellowship programmes offered by TWAS and OWSD are mutually exclusive.

Downloads

Contact Details

• TWAS Fellowships Office
ICTP Campus, Strada Costiera 11
34151 Trieste, Italy
Phone: +39 040 2240-314
Fax: +39 040 2240-689
E-mail: fellowships@twas.org

• National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq)
International Cooperation Office (ASCIN)
SHIS Quadra 01 Conjunto B, Bloco "D",
Edificio Santos Dumont
Lago sul Brasília, DF, CEP: 71605-001
Brazil
Phone: +55 61 3211-9441
Fax: +55 61 2108-9442
E-mail: twas.ascin@cnpq.br

PhD positions sandwich model: University of Hohenheim and African counterparts

Up to 3 PhD positions (sandwich model with African counterparts)

University of Hohenheim (Stuttgart, Germany) with its long-standing inter-disciplinary and internationally-orientated research tradition in natural sciences, agricultural science, economic and social science offers up to three researcher positions (Dr. sc. agr.) within the BMZ-funded research project “LegumeCHOICE - Realizing the underexploited potential of multi-purpose legumes towards improved livelihoods and a better environment in crop-livestock systems in East & Central Africa”. The project is coordinated by the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (Kenya) with close cooperation with national counterparts in Kenya (ICRAF, KARI), Ethiopia (ILRI, EIAR), and the Democratic Republic of Congo (UCB). Hence, the
selected candidates will have the opportunity to work in an exciting and international environment.
 

On equal qualification, candidates with nationalities of the respective target countries (i.e., Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya) will be preferred. The positions are subject to additional successful co-funding by project partners and external funding agencies (e.g., DAAD). 

Background and project goal: Current farm-level production and productivity of legumes is limited for many areas of the humid tropics (e.g., Kenya, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo) and below what is technically feasible. Reasons underlying the limited success include (i) focus on a specific class of legumes without considering the overall farming systems, (ii) ‘pushing’ a specific legume technology rather than responding to specific farmers’ constraints and objectives, (iii) promoting legume technologies in absence of an enabling environment for their uptake, and (iv) lack of detailed understanding of the priorities and constraints faced by farm systems. LegumeCHOICE will address these issues by providing the missing links between existing research efforts, farmer demands, and an enabling environment for legume cultivation. The overall goal of the project is to improve food and nutrition security, reduce poverty, and enhance the production environment of smallholder farmers and rural populations through facilitation of the smart integration and use of multi-purpose legumes, providing food, protein, feed, fuel, and/or organic matter in crop-livestock systems. LegumeCHOICE will provide knowledge to farmers and development partners facilitating farmers to make rational decisions for enhancing short and long-term contributions of multi-purpose legumes to farmer livelihoods including aspects of legume production, input supply systems, and markets.

PhD studies will focus on the following research areas:

• Nitrogen (N) cycling in legume-based cropping systems: this topic will focus on biological N fixation and its contribution to crop quality and soil fertility. Field and lab-based analyses will include the assessment of geochemical N fluxes in tested cropping systems with the overall goal to identify those particular legumes providing the best short- to long-term productivity potential under local soil and climatic conditions.
• Carbon (C) cycling in legume-based cropping systems: this topic will focus on the contribution of identified legumes to C sequestration and energy provision for microbial processes (with close links to N cycling). On basis of field and lab-based analyses, the focus will be carbon use efficiency of decomposing soil microbes as regulated by biochemical quality and hence decomposability of organic inputs deriving from tested legumes.
• Biophysical modelling of legume-based cropping systems identified according to farmers’ requirements will allow comparative analyses of their benefits and trade-offs under various management options. Scenarios will include crop rotations and intercropping, inputs, timing of management (cropping, manure application) and different legume types. Biomass formation, soil C sequestration and N cycling will be evaluated for each scenario. Model parameters will be measured in field experiments representing the main system options. In a following step, LegumeCHOICE uses the outputs of the biophysical model to give recommendations for legume-crop combinations considering long-term sustainability of the systems.

According to your qualification, please select only one core topic for your detailed application, but indicate, if applicable, your interest in another topic.
 

Requirements

• Strong knowledge of and affinity to crop and/or soil sciences as well as soil biology.
• Strong knowledge of studying terrestrial N and C cycling as well as biochemical quality of plants.
• Experience in performance of greenhouse and field experiments is an asset.
• For the modelling study, good mathematical skills and experience in biophysical modelling are required,
• Good working knowledge of English is a must.
• Intercultural competence and willingness to stay at University of Hohenheim for academic (PhD study program) and research work.

Location
Candidates will be based at the Institute of Plant Production and Agroecology in the Tropics and Subtropics under the supervision of Professor Dr Georg Cadisch, Dr Frank Rasche and Dr Carsten Marohn. Logistics of field trips to target countries will be supported by local research partners.
 

Starting date and duration
Earliest start of studies is 01 October 2014, duration is 36 months.
 

Contact for more information
Dr Frank Rasche, phone: +49-711 459 24137, email: frank.rasche@uni-hohenheim.de
 

Applications
Your application should be sent electronically to Gabriele_Kircher@uni-hohenheim.de with only ONE pdf document as attachment including your motivation letter and research ideas to the research topic selected, CV, BSc/MSc-study transcripts and three recommendation letters.
 

Application deadline is 26 July 2014.

First class in and out of varsity

By KITAVI MUTUA
More by this Author

When Eric Mumo graduated from university with a First Class honours degree in 2009, he got several exciting job offers, but he declined them all. Fresh from Jomo Kenyatta University of Science and Technology, the statistics graduate opted for commercial farming and set up his base in the most unlikely of places — his arid village of Nzangathi in Kitui County.  He started with Sh150,000 of personal savings that has now grown into a thriving farm worth Sh16 million in assets and 12 full time employees.
In just five years, Mr Mumo has built up a steady enterprise which includes dairy, fish, poultry and horticultural units on his 15-acre land and won several innovation awards. At first, his peers and some family members feared that he was gambling with his future instead of seeking formal employment. They felt, and genuinely so, that his good academic papers and young age should not be channelled into risky and unpredictable ventures like farming but rather into the flashy corporate world. However, determined to pursue his ambition, and armed with passion for his dreams and a little capital, Mumo bought a Friesian dairy cow. “I bought the first dairy cow in 2009, and soon after I added two more. I started supplying fresh milk to local restaurants” he says. Each cow was producing on average 14 litres daily, which he sold at Sh60 per litre at the nearby shops, earning Sh2,520 daily.

With the steady income of Sh75,000 per month, Mr Mumo invested the profits in more cows. Today he has 28 cows. The breakthrough came when he decided to diversify into tomatoes and water melons.  “My decision to stop relying on rain-fed agriculture and to engage in drip irrigation was the turning point as this ensured I  was in business throughout the year.”

The 29-year-old went full blast when he sunk a borehole, which enabled him to put his father’s entire 15-acre farm on drip irrigation. “In the first season, I harvested hundreds of tonnes of water melon, which I sold in Nairobi, recovering the costs of my investment and bought an Isuzu pick-up truck,” he  recalls. With a kilo of water melon then going for Sh32, each trip to Nairobi was fetching on average Sh48,000, and he could make several in one week.  When the Saturday Nation sought Mumo for this interview, we found a delegation of 80 farmers from the Embu Anglican Church Diocese learning from his simple, but effective farming techniques.

The farmer has been recognised by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Ministry of Agriculture for his outstanding innovations in food security.  Last year, he was listed among the most innovative and promising young farmers in the country, besides being pre-qualified as a dependable supplier of fish fingerlings in the region. Mumo stands out because of his ability to integrate all the farming units, where they inter-depend on each other to reduce production costs.

Having recently diversified into commercial poultry and fish farming, all the units now depend on each other and nothing goes to waste. “We’ve established a poultry incubator which gives us 528 chicks every three weeks and 10 fish ponds each with a capacity to hold more than 3,000 fish but the demand for both is overwhelming,” he said. He explains that all the four units — dairy, horticulture, poultry and fish — support each other. “Poultry manure goes to fish ponds to support the algae fed on by fish, the enriched pond water is channelled into the horticulture farm together with recycled dairy manure while the waste vegetables are fed to the chickens in a fascinating cycle which saves production costs.” 

The farmer says Ukambani region can easily sustain itself if only enough water was made available to every home. Every week, he is kept on his toes by overwhelming orders to supply all sorts of produce including day-old chicks, tomatoes, fish, milk to the market. In a good month, proceeds from milk, poultry, fish, fruits and vegetables can fetch him Sh500,000 gross. He makes more when he sells in bulk. Mumo urges the youth to dirty their hands to make money. 

His farm has created 12 direct jobs, and many others indirectly. Mumo intends to turn his farm into a demonstration centre where farmers across the region can visit and learn from the simple ideas and replicate them in their homes.

Eric Mumo Phillip feeding fish at one of of his many ponds at his Nzangathi farm in Kitui County. PHOTO | KITAVI MUTUA  NATION MEDIA GROUP

IT HAS NOT BEEN EASY

Since Eric Mumo ventured into commercial farming, he has learned on the job the hard way and overcame odds. From seeking credit to finance his projects, to marketing his farm produce and managing workers, he faced challenges he never expected. Getting a bank loan to invest in farming was his worst nightmare because the interest rates are high and there is no grace period. “Banks are asking us to start repaying their loans in the first month, and yet there is no crop that can yield results in such short time.” This frustrates many farmers.

Mumo urges the government to establish a branch of the Agricultural Finance Corporation (AFC) in every county to support farmers. The other challenge has been lack of skilled labour, which has forced him to invest heavily in training his workers. “Most people who seek jobs in farms are semi-illiterate. Such workers cannot manage a poultry house, or monitor the health of fish or dairy cows,” he explains, adding he incurred huge losses until he started training his workers.

The farmer explains that agriculture extension services are not sufficient. “Kenya can sustain a double digit economic growth if agriculture is made a compulsory subject up to Form Four to make the youth stop their obsession with white collar jobs.” Mumo has also learnt to invest in marketing and quality of his produce.

“I’m very keen on the quality of my products because I target mostly Nairobi and export market where consumers demand the best,” he says.

Source: Daily Nation, Saturday, March 15, 2014