Ghent University - Doctoral scholarships for candidates from developing countries

Scholarship type, duration and funding

• These grants take the form of a so called “sandwich” scholarship: the candidate obtains a scholarship for 24 months to work (within a span of 48 months) on the PhD at Ghent University. Only for the periods the scholarship holder works at Ghent University the scholarship holder will receive a monthly income from Ghent University. The rest (24 months) of the PhD research will be carried out at the partner university in the South, for which no funding is provided through this scholarship.
• The grant is not renewable.
• The part of the research that will be executed in the South must be funded (e.g. local PhD scholarship or salary) by the partner institution in the South, or a(n) (inter)national government/funding agency/partner institution (excluding Ghent University*). In order to be eligible for this funding, students must be able to demonstrate that they have acquired funding or a grant for 24 months to fund the part of their research that will be carried out in the South.
• For the part of the PhD research executed in the South, candidates must also prove that they will be sufficiently exempted from teaching or other assignments as to be able to fully concentrate on their PhD research. Applicants are allowed to dedicate maximum 10% of their time (fulltime appointment) to other tasks (teaching and other tasks) while working on their PhD research in the South.

*It is not allowed to bring in projects as co-financing in which Ghent is involved as a partner, e.g. VLIRUOS projects.

This scholarship intents to support students from the start of their PhD studies at Ghent University. Candidates who already have secured a PhD scholarship to work on their PhD in Ghent (for instance Nascere, HEC, ...) are not eligible.

Candidates who receive no funding at all for the PhD research at the partner university or who only receive a partial scholarship/funding (e.g. tuition fee waiver or bench fee type of scholarship) are not eligible. In case this fulltime scholarship/funding is untimely stopped after the Ghent University scholarship has started, the latter will be untimely cancelled as well. 

Cofunding

• Co-financing is mandatory with this scholarship, for more details about which co-financing is allowed, please consult the call documents.
• In general the following partnership conditions needs to be fulfilled:

1. there must be a local PhD supervisor at the partner university or research center in the South
2. A written statement from the partner university is requested stating that the candidate will receive a fulltime local PhD scholarship or salary for a period of 24 months when working on the PhD at the partner university in the South AND
3. will be sufficiently exempted from teaching or other assignments as to be able to fully concentrate on the PhD research in the South. Applicants can dedicate maximum 10 % of their time (fulltime appointment) to other tasks (teaching and other tasks)

Mobility scheme of the scholarship:

The following mobility scheme is mandatory:

1. Students need to start and end with a research stay of 3 -12 months in Ghent.
2. The first research stay in Ghent needs to be started between 1 October 2021 and 28 February 2022.
3. At least 24 months of locally funded research stay in the South must be scheduled in between the first and last research stay in Ghent.

How to apply for this scholarship

• Application forms must be submitted (in English) electronically via e-mail to BOFapplication@ugent.be. 
• The Ghent University supervisor must submit the following 2 documents:
  • An advice on the candidate, stating the supervisors opinion on the capability of the candidate as a future researcher.
  • An advice on the ethical and biosafety context of the proposed research project

Evaluation

The Research Council makes a selection of the applications based in part on the recommendations obtained from members of the Council for Development Cooperation.  Please consult the call documents regarding the importance and definition of development relevance.

Selection criteria:

Please note that this call is highly competitive. The success rate for this call is 19% (call 2019).

1. the qualifications of the applicant
2. the relevance of the research topic for development & capacity building
3. the doctoral project

(including the scientific/scholarly potential of the promoter’s research group(s); including the partnership between Ghent University and the local institute; the scientific/scholarly potential of the local institute).

From 19 May 2021 onwards, the result of the selection will be announced online.