Call for proposals

NEPAD/North Africa Biosciences Network (NABNet) is initiating a long term regional program combining R&D and capacity building. To this end NEPAD/NABNet will provide 25 fellowships to north african young women and men (Masters or PhDs) for the year 2008. Applications will be accepted in the following nine areas*: Barley biofortification(1), Humain genetic diseases(2a) and/or biopharmaceuticals(2b), Bipesticides (3), Grain(4a) and/or forage(4b) legumes improvement, Aquatic resources stock assessment and exploitation(5), Olive trees and related products development(6), Animal resources assessment and improvement(7). Wheat (8), Date Palm (9)

The proposals will be selected based on the pertinence of their expected impact on the development of a north african concerted and complementary research for generating original knowledge and economical development. To be selected, it is necessary to identify at least 2 other laboratories in different north african countries with whom it is suitable to have a collaborative program. The relation of the proposal with yet existing bilateral collaborations in the region and the involvement of the suggested teams in common international projects will be useful during the selecting process. Principal investigators (PIs) are encouraged to propose themselves, if possible, a group of three candidates and their respectives applications from 3 laboratories belong to different north african countries. NEPAD/NABNet will help PIs by providing contacts if necessary, but proposing yet linked teams is preferable. It is important that the various north african teams show complementary background and that biotechnology approach and exploitation of biodivesity will be involved in their proposals. It is preferable that the teams complement through a common thematic area, but it is acceptable too that the teams combine thematic area bakground with technology plateform availability.

A team involved in a country is a master or PhD student with his supervisor. A group developing a project in the region is some supervisors with their respective students. A selected regional group should be able to follow up with a project during 20-30 months and to initiate a following initiative through a wider consortium in he region for subsequent 4-5 years. During this process and based on the progress of the group, North african governments and international sponsors will be approached for consistent support. The group is supposed during this process to further its notoriety and should be able to maximise its ability of involvement in international projects and links through other NEPAD/Biosciences Networks and arabic initiatives. Complementary mecanisms of funding to these links will be prospected by NEPAD. The activity of the group will be reviewed through an evaluation process using regional integration and international standard indicators, and support will be continued on performance bases.

In parallel with sharing benefits between contributors and mutual input recognition by following IPRs procedures, the initiation and implementation of a regional project will be based on sharing costs principle adopted by NEPAD. To this end, the institutional (or from other structures and complementary projects) support is a must. NEPAD/NABNet will use the resources available essentially through NEPAD/Canadian International Development Agency(CIDA) fund to facilitate exchange in the group (partial support to short training of one student in an other laboratory of the regional group, partial support for PIs to follow up with the project through common meetings) and to contribute in the basic need of the concerned young scientists.

To follow up with this call NEPAD/NABNet will accept preliminary applications for which the deadline is January 31. Further time will be given to the selected applications to finalise and homogenize the contributions of each project.

* The eligibility of the areas is based first on the numbers and then on the letters, however a et b for the same number could be combined in a common project

December 29th 2007