Funding for African Researchers

New Programme of Research Development Fellowships funded by the Medical Research Foundation’s Africa Research Excellence Fund

The Medical Research Foundation has recently established the Africa Research Excellence Fund (AREF) to nurture excellent health research by Africans, in Africa with impact for Africa. The AREF is pleased to announce its first programme of AREF Research Development Fellowships.

This is a new opportunity intended to benefit outstanding early-career African researchers. The Programme is designed to enable talented, African researchers who have been awarded their PhD in the last four years to develop their own research ideas and funding proposals. Each AREF Fellowship will support a placement of up to nine months in a leading research organisation in Europe or South Africa.

The deadline for receipt of applications is 1600 hours (GMT) on 8 July 2015.  Our first awards will be announced in November 2015.

Please read on for further information about the competition and how to apply.

Read more here

TDR Grants and other funding opportunities

Calls for grant applications or/and letters of interest

TDR funds specific research projects in diseases of poverty, which cover infectious diseases and the culture and environment that contribute to these problems. We also support the development of individuals and institutions in the countries where these diseases are prevalent.

Below are the current opportunities

Research on the etiological causes of serious infections in young African infants 

Deadline for submission: 11 May 2015

Research teams from African research institutions are invited to submit Letters of Interest (LoI) for research projects intending to use previously collected samples, microbiological and clinical data to understand the aetiologies of serious infection in newborns in rural areas of Africa. One team will be selected for funding for a maximum amount of US$ 120 000. 

Clickhere for more information on other available opportunities

PLOS ONE ousts reviewer, editor after sexist peer-review storm

The journal PLOS ONE announced today that it is has "removed" a reviewer whose remarks about a manuscript by two female researchers caused an uproar earlier this week. "[W]e have removed the referee from our reviewer database," wrote Damian Pattinson, PLOS ONE’s editorial director, in a Web posting.

The journal has also "formally removed the review from the record, and have sent the manuscript out to a new editor for re-review. We have also asked the Academic Editor who handled the manuscript to step down from the Editorial Board."

PLOS ONE is also considering ways to make the identity of a reviewer known to submitting authors, Pattinson wrote. "We are reviewing our processes to ensure that future authors are given a fair and unprejudiced review. As part of this, we are working on new features to make the review process more open and transparent, since evidence suggests that review is more constructive and civil when the reviewers’ identities are known to the authors (Walsh et al., 2000). This work has been ongoing for some months at PLOS ONE, and we will be announcing more details on these offerings soon."

Read more here