CARNEGIE SCHOLARS’ MEETING

As part of Year 3 activities on the project, the UG-CAPREx Steering Committee in September 2015 organized a half-day meeting at the Centre for African Wetlands, University of Ghana which was attended by all UG-Carnegie Scholars including the CAPREx Fellows and faculty members in the focal departments (i.e. departments within the College of Basic and Applied Sciences). 

The meeting provided an opportunity for CAPREx fellows who had returned from the University of Cambridge (i.e. the 1^st and 2^nd cohorts) to share their experiences and lessons learnt on the with other CAPREx fellows who were yet to visit Cambridge as well as UG-Carnegie PhD Scholarship recipients in the final year or who had just completed their programmes.

It was highlighted that the fellowship enabled the Fellows to develop good work ethics, collaborative and critical research skills that may not have been available to them at their home institution. On the whole, the Fellows had positive experiences on the programme, which in almost all cases, led to the winning of other grants, either on their own or with their Cambridge-based collaborators.

The meeting served as a means of encouraging the UG-Carnegie Scholars to consider post-doctoral fellowships as part of their career development plans. It also served as a platform for networking among the UG-Carnegie Scholars and created an avenue for mentoring by CAPREx fellows. In addition, the meeting also served as an information/ briefing session for the next call for applications for the CAPREx Postdoctoral Fellowships which was due to be announced in October 2015.