African Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellowships (ADDRF)

(Also see sixth Call of the ADDRF awards)

The African Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellowship (ADDRF) Program was initiated in 2008 in partnership with the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Ford Foundation. The program seeks to address some of the challenges faced by graduate students in African universities. The Fellowships are awarded to advanced doctoral students who are citizens or permanent residents of a sub-Saharan African country and are within two years of completing their doctoral thesis at an African university. The fellowships target students whose research shows great promise of making significant contributions to governance, equity, health, sexuality studies, or population-related issues in the region and are open to applicants from both Anglophone and Francophone countries. In particular, the fellowship program aims to bridge the knowledge gap in health systems research in sub-Saharan Africa. The program's general objectives are to facilitate more rigorous engagement of doctoral students in research, to strengthen the Fellows research skills thereby enhancing the quality of their dissertations, and to shorten the period it takes to complete doctoral dissertation in African universities. Taken together, these are expected to lead to a higher retention of a new generation of highly-skilled and locally-trained African scholars in research and academic positions within the region.

As of the end of 2011, 85 doctoral students enrolled in over 20 sub-Saharan African universities were awarded fellowships under the ADDRF program. These students come from at least 15 sub-Saharan African countries. Where necessary, candidates home departments also receive facilitation grants to enable them provide effective and timely supervision to the grant recipients and facilitate internal and external reviews of their dissertations.

Recipients of the 2008 ADDRF Fellowships and facilitators at the Scientific Writing Workshop held October 19-20, 2009 in Nairobi, Kenya

As part of the award, all grant recipients participate in two training workshops organized by APHRC. The workshops are intended to introduce students to research methods and ethics, literature retrieval, reference management, scientific writing, proposal development, and communication of research. The workshops also serve as a networking opportunity for cohorts of Fellows which could lay the foundations for future collaborations across national boundaries. The content for these workshops is largely informed by areas of training need highlighted by the Fellows.

(Also see fifth Call of the ADDRF awards)