The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) in Germany calls for applications or nominations for the German-African Innovation Incentive Award (GAIIA).

The funding award honours African researchers and their German cooperation partners for outstanding research achievements with high application potential. In addition, it provides funding for a German-African cooperation project and offers accompanying transfer qualification measures for the award winners.

The funded collaborative projects shall further develop research results already achieved into application-oriented solutions, product-oriented utilisation and structure-building initiatives.

Funding will be provided for collaborative projects preferably dealing with one or more of the following priority areas:

• Environmental sciences
• Health research
• Bioeconomy
• Societal development and social sciences (in particular socially responsible business practices, social innovations, sustainability strategies)
• Resource management (in particular valorization of locally available resources, resource efficiency and sustainability)
• Information and communication technologies.

The application procedure has two phases: First, African applicants can either be nominated for the award by a representative of a German university / research institution / company, or they can apply for the award themselves. In both cases, the African-German project partners submit a jointly developed project outline (in English) and at the same time express the willingness to cooperate within the framework of a joint research project.

Submission deadline for project outlines (1st phase) is 7 November 2023.

In the second phase of the procedure, the applicants whose project outlines have been successful in the evaluation will be invited to submit full formal proposals. Applications may be submitted by universities, non-university research institutions and other institutions contributing to research as well as commercial companies.

Please find a translation of the the official funding announcement attached to this e-mail. For further information about the award and the previous award winner, please visit www.gaiia-bmbf.de.

For questions regarding the award, the application/nomination procedure, please contact BMBF’s entrusted project management agency DLR Projektträger:

Ms. Juliane Kuttenkeuler

Phone: +49 228 3821 -1335

E-mail: Juliane.Kuttenkeuler@dlr.de

Mr. Tiemo Pokraka

Phone: +49 228 3821 -2097

E-mail: tiemo.pokraka@dlr.de

Are you are a scientist and well connected with colleagues in Germany?

The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation honours outstanding, internationally-recognised researchers by granting the Georg Forster Research Award.

Nominations may be submitted by researchers in Germany for experts of all disciplines. The Humboldt Foundation especially welcomes the nomination of women researchers.

Find out more here:

Georg Forster Research Award

The nomination period usually ends on 31 October of each year.

The TWAS-DFG Cooperation Visits Programme provides postdoctoral researchers from sub-Saharan Africa, including South Africa, with the opportunity to make a three-month ‘Cooperation Visit’ to a research institute in Germany. Such visits must be undertaken within 12 months of the award.

The aim of the visit is to initiate research collaboration between African and German scientists with the ultimate goal of developing longer-term links, perhaps through other Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, or German Research Foundation) programmes. DFG will cover travel expenses and provide subsistence costs for the stay in Germany. The administration and financial operation of TWAS is undertaken by UNESCO in accordance with an agreement signed by the two organizations.

Deadline: 6 September 2023

Click here for more information