for visiting PhD students from developing countries  to conduct research at the Universität Hohenheim, Germany

(“South – North PhD Sandwich Scholarships 2011”)  
The Food Security Center (FSC) is a university center of excellence in development collaboration at the University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany. FSC is one of five excellence centers of the pro-gram “exceed – Higher Education Excellence in Development Cooperation”, which is supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) with funds of the Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) of Germany. FSC’s mission is to make effective and innova-tive scientific contributions in research, teaching, and policy advice to eradicate hunger and achieve food security in collaboration with partner research and education organizations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and national and international development and research organizations. Thematically, FSC’s activities deal with issues of sustainable food availability, food access, food use, and food utilization.

Description of South – North Sandwich Scholarship 2011

FSC awards up to four visiting Sandwich scholarships to PhD students from developing countries for a period of six months in 2011. The Center wishes to attract outstanding PhD students pursuing a career in academia or development collaboration. The scholarship aims at increasing their previously gained scientific knowledge and skills relevant to food security related issues. The successful candidates will receive a scholarship for conducting PhD thesis related research studies and hence adding value to the PhD thesis and contributing to the mission of FSC. In addition, the successful candidates can select from the regular course catalogues of the international MSc and PhD study programs offered by the University of Hohenheim (also including the courses offered in the PhD program “Global Food Security”).
For research collaboration, each successful candidate will work with the research staff of the relevant institute of the University of Hohenheim to conduct a specific research project contributing to the mission of FSC and relevant for her/his PhD thesis. Funding for research is expected to be provided by the applicant’s and/or supervisor’s institute and/or other organizations. The objective of the research collaboration is to write at least one joint, peerreviewed journal publication or paper to be presented at an international conference that contributes to FSC’s mission and that is relevant to the PhD thesis. Successful candidates are expected to present their research proposal, state of research and preliminary results in FSC’s interdisciplinary seminars and at relevant department’s PhD seminars. Participation in teaching and training activities on a limited scale, if possible, is desired.
Furthermore, FSC aims at establishing an active, longlasting collaboration with the supported researchers and their home institutes through an interactive alumni-network.
The scholarship is awarded for a stay at the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart, Germany. The monthly grant is 1,000 Euros. In addition, FSC pays for traveling to/from Hohenheim. Health insurance and other costs must be paid for from the stipend.

Required skills
The applicant must provide proof of:
•   outstanding study performance in agricultural, nutritional, natural, social, economic or political sciences, or related disciplines with specification on food security related issues with a minimum MSc grade of 2.5;
•   working on doctoral studies at her/his home institute by the time of application and by the time the scholarship program commences;
•   latest academic degree completed no more than 6 years prior to start of scholarship
•   track record of knowledge in the proposed field of study;
•   plan to return to his/her home country / country of residence and institute;
•   excellent proficiency in oral and written English.

Furthermore, the applicant must:
•   be able to conduct innovative research;
•   have excellent interpersonal skills and team spirit;
•   be able and willing to work well in an interdisciplinary, multicultural environment with individuals from different scientific, societal and cultural backgrounds and with organizations from the public, private and civil society sector;
•   be available for the entire period of the research stay of 6 months in 2011;
•   be a national of a developing country according to OECD DAC list.

Application
Application is only possible by completing FSC’s application form, which can be downloaded from the box "Links & Downloads" on the right side. Besides the application form, the documents indicated in the application form are required for the application.

Applications will only be accepted, if the research proposal is based on one of the research themes suggested on the “List of research themes” from FSC’s webpage.

The deadline for the application is September 30, 2010.

FSC will confirm the receipt of all (complete) applications (i.e., if an application is not complete or not in the described format, FSC will not consider it and will not confirm receipt of the application). 

The selection of the candidates will be in the beginning of December 2010, the scholarship program will start anytime in 2011, based on the agreement between supervisor of the hosting institute and the scholar.

All accepted applications will be selected according to the following criteria:
1. Fulfillment of announcement criteria (cf. “required skills” and “application”);
2. Quality of proposal and project feasibility;
3. Fulfillment of demands (e.g. of hosting institutes or emerging from collaborations with (development) organizations).

The selected applicants will be contacted no later than December 17, 2010. Please be aware that FSC will contact only successful candidates.  

Please try to find answers to potential questions yourself before contacting FSC. Please keep in mind: FSC's Scholarship Program and the application process is described in depth in the announcement and in this application form. For important questions, please write an email to fsc-scholarships@uni-hohenheim.de - and please only to this mail address!