World-class Joint Doctoral Programme in Forest and Nature for Society (FONASO)

Forest and Nature for Society (FONASO) is a three-year world-class Joint Doctoral Programme. FONASO is part of the Erasmus Mundus programme initiated by the European Commission to enhance and promote European higher education throughout the world. The language of the programme is English.


Sustainable forest and nature management

The main objective of the FONASO programme is to educate the leaders of the future generation of researchers, teachers and top management staff working with sustainable forest and nature management, in both tropical and temperate regions, to ensure wider societal benefits. Within forest and nature management, the programme is focused on the scientific fields of (i) economics and policy, and (ii) ecology and silviculture. The emphasis is on applied research.


The FONASO Consortium

The FONASO programme is offered by a Consortium that includes globally top ranked universities and leading international research organisations. The programme builds on existing research schools and environments, taking the best from each to build up joint supervision, activities and doctoral candidate courses. The Consortium consists of seven partner institutions and five associate institutions:


Partner institutions:

•University of Copenhagen, Denmark
•The Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden
•Bangor University, UK
•Dresden University, Germany
•University of Göttingen, Germany
•AgroParisTech, France
•University of Padova, Italy
Associate institutions:

•Center for International Forestry Research, Indonesia
•Dalhoff Larsen & Hornemann, Denmark
•James Cook University, Australia
•University of British Columbia, Canada
•World Agroforestry Centre, Kenya

Fellowships

Every year approximately 8-10 fellowships will be available to academically outstanding applicants. There is one annual call for applications; short-listed applicants are invited to Europe to present and discuss their proposals.


Fellowship Amounts

Category A and B fellowships are identical except that the first are eligible to receive €7500 for travel and the latter €0/3000. Each fellowship is made up of two more components: operational funds and salary/stipend. Operational funding ranges from €10,800 to €21,600 depending on type of study while salary (doctoral candidate employed) is €100,800 and stipends (doctoral candidate legally treated as a student) is €50,400. See more info http://www.fonaso.eu/Fellowships/Fellowshipstable.aspx

Application and election Procedures

Deadline 16 November 2009

FONASO only issues one annual call for applications covering both EU and third-country applicants in order to obtain one pool of applications among which to select the best. The annual call announces selected research subjects relevant to the application round. FONASO has a policy of equal opportunities for men and women and people with special needs.

Application Form and Guidelines

You can access the Application Form 2009 here. For directions on how to complete the application, you can download the Guidelines to completing the FONASO doctoral candidate application form.

Main contents of the application form:

Indication of selected research topic from the FONASO PhD Topic Catalogue
Project synopsis of max 1500 words
A sample of own scientific text
Certified copy of second university degree(s) certificate
Brief Curriculum Vitae
English proficiency (min score IELTS 7.0 , TOEFL: Paper-based 600/IBT 100)
Two academic references

Evaluation criteria Eligible applications are evaluated by the FONASO Assessment Committee according to three main criteria:

Academic potential as indicated by (i) a very good second university degree; (ii) a research synopsis that closely relates to one of the topics announced in the FONASO PhD Topic Catalogue, (iii) documented research achievements, e.g. publications in international journals with peer review. This is the most important criterion

English proficiency
Academic references
Short-listing

Based on this, the best applicants are short-listed and invited to develop a full project proposal. Short-listed applicants are informed by email no later than 1 December 2009. They are put in direct contact with the potential supervisors, who will assist the applicant in developing the full project proposal. Within a deadline of 5 weeks, the applicant submits the full proposal on a standard format to the FONASO Secretariat.

Interview

The short-listed applicants are invited to present their proposal before a Scientific Committee, consisting of at least two members of the FONASO Consortium Commission and one supervisor of each proposal. The interviews will take place in Copenhagen in Week 2 of 2010. Applicant costs are covered by the Consortium. We expect around half of interviewed applicants to be offered a fellowship.

Start date

Selected doctoral candidates should expect to start their doctoral studies around 1 September 2010.

Erasmus Mundus Secretariat
For further information on e.g. the programme, admission procedures and deadlines please contact us at

FONASO@life.ku.dk



You are also welcome to write to

Erasmus Mundus Secretariat

University of Copenhagen
Faculty of Life Sciences
Bülowsvej 17
DK-1870 Frederiksberg
Denmark

Website: http://www.fonaso.eu/AboutFONASO.aspx

Source: http://scholarization.blogspot.com/2009/10/europe-erasmus-mundus-joint-doctoral.html

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Japanese Government Engineering Scholarships for International Students at the University of Tokyo

Japanese Government Engineering Scholarships for International Students


This special program offers non-Japanese students an opportunity to work toward Doctor of Engineering (3 years) or Master of Engineering (2 years) degrees.

Ten of the top qualified students will be awarded scholarships from the Japanese Government's Monbu-kagakusho (MEXT: The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology). We also seek several more highly qualified students to enroll as self-supporting students.

All of the students will be enrolled in one of the departments below:


Mechanical Engineering; Electrical Engineering and Information Systems; Materials Engineering; Aeronautics and Astronautics; Chemical System Engineering


Program Features

* Lectures and research guidance in English
* Interdisciplinary program* Direct entry to postgraduate degree courses(Non-degree or research fellowship programs are not offered.)
* Admission based on the evaluation of the documents submitted by the applicants and e-mail interviews between the faculty and the applicant(You don't have to take Regular Entrance Examination)* Free basic Japanese language classes for the students and their spouses

The Japanese Government's Scholarship

Ten Applicants who have exceptional academic records will be awarded the Japanese Government's MEXT scholarship by recommendation of The University of Tokyo for the period of either the Doctoral program or the Masters program. If you complete the Masters course with distinguished achievement or with a substantial contribution to your field of research, you may be provided a chance to continue working toward a Doctoral degree under a continuing scholarship. The Scholarship grantees are exempt from Entrance Fee and Annual Tuition Fees throughout their entire term of study. They are also provided with round-trip air tickets from their home country to Japan.

Admission

The Graduate Council of The University of Tokyo grants admission to this program based upon the recommendation of the School of Engineering. Screening for admission is based both on the evaluation of documents submitted by the international students and on Internet interviews conducted by the faculty. Once the evaluation process is complete, ten top qualified applicants will be nominated as candidates for the MEXT Scholarship and several more applicants will be granted admission to this program on a non-scholarship basis.For enrollment in October 2010, a completed Application Form together with other necessary application materials must be submitted to the MEM International Graduate Program Admissions Office at the address below by November 30th, 2009. Please submit the materials by registered mail or use an international delivery service such as UPS and FEDEX.ApplicationPlease click here to download Application form

Address

MEM International Graduate Program Admissions Office
Room #131A, 1st Floor,Engineering Building #8School of Engineering,
The University of Tokyo
7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan
Phone/fax+81-3-5841-8805
E-mail: admin@mem.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp

Application Deadline: November 30th, 2009

Website: http://www.mem.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/

For more info, http://scholarization.blogspot.com/2009/10/japan-japanese-government-engineering.html

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