Universidad de Bonn - Alemania Centro de Investigación para el Desarrollo -ZEF Unviersidad Nacional de Colombia

Programa de Apoyo a la Formación Doctoral (PAFD)


Objetive 1: Introducing interdisciplinary, integrative and innovative scientific approaches, concepts and methods on environmental relations, natural resources and conflict

The quality-based selection process started by the end of 2017 and it focused on several topics: granting scholarships for doctoral students; financing post-doctoral visiting scholarships; organizing meetings and trainings for the development of curricula with interdisciplinary modules; establishing a research agenda; building a stakeholder network; selecting and training staff (coordinators, assistants and professors); discussing about a internationalization strategy; and starting up the first training activities (English courses, e-learning concepts and data management tools).

Both the ZEF and the IDEA agreed on applying contextualized selection criteria to grant six doctoral scholarships per year for the next three years (2018, 2019, and 2020) to Colombian candidates from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia (UN). Additionally, the DSSP will grant two six-month research scholarships per year for post-doctoral students from the IDEA (including its regional seats in the country) for the development of projects aiming at the study of the interactions between humans and the rest of the nature in Colombia. Two writing fellowships are also foreseen for the development of joint projects and publications; these will be awarded to researchers from the UN and other universities in the region. These short-term scholarships allow the high-quality scientific interaction and the joint production of knowledge of South-South and South-North allies. The selection criteria follow the guidelines of the German Academic Exchange Service (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst - DAAD).

The development of the DSSP is supported by several learning methods (blended learning) and online education components through the digital platform Learning Management System (LMS) by Moodle, which is an open-access system for academic and non-academic education widely used worldwide.