GBRCN Secretariat secured a project to support African partners
One of the tasks of the GBRCN Demonstration Project Secretariat is, together with the partners, to seek sources of further funding for enabling the partners to collaborate in the networking initiative.
A recent call from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) within their framework of the Federal Government’s Strategy for the Internationalization of Science and Research was timely for us and perfectly fitted the goals and aims of GBRCN. This particular call was to support pilot measures with Africa.
The strategy seeks to fund partnerships for sustainable solutions in developing countries and supports exploratory and preparatory measures in science, research and education, to implement sustainable, knowledge-based solutions. At the same time, the partnerships are to make a contribution to the development of the African partners' scientific capacities. This will be realized by means of training measures for young researchers, by contributions to the further development of research management and, last but not least, by the extension of specific research infrastructures in order to enable qualified (young) African researchers to pursue a research career in their home country. Another goal is to increase the involvement of partners from African developing countries in international consortia with German participation.
A small project proposal was developed with African partners: 'Measures for the integration of partners in Kenya and Namibia into the GBRCN - a contribution to the conservation and use of microbial diversity in sub-equatorial Africa'. This proposal seeks to cover measures to enable Kenyan and Namibian partners to actively participate in the GBRCN Demonstration project with the goal to enhance their own development towards biodiversity policies, to enhance developments towards the establishment of national BRCs, and to provide the African view and input to the GBRCN Demonstration Project.
We are delighted to announce that a few days ago we received the notice that the proposal has been accepted for funding. Project activities will start towards the end of this year.
