A research fund to promote collaboration among African & Indian scientists

New Delhi: The Africa India Mobility Fund (AIMF), a fund to promote collaboration between African and Indian scientists, has reopened calls for applications to scientists from the two regions who wish to conduct visits of up to three months in either direction.

The mobility funds will be given through AIMF, which is a partnership between The African Academy of Sciences (The AAS) and the Wellcome Trust/DBT India Alliance (India Alliance) running since April 2018.  Travel grants that seek to establish links between African and Indian researchers and cultivate a culture of collaboration will serve as a vehicle to improve research capacity and build leadership in biomedical and clinical research both for Africa and India. 
 
The AIMF comes on the heels of the Third India-Africa Forum Summit held in 2015, where Heads of State adopted the Delhi Declaration renewing their commitment to work with each other and outlining the priority areas and ways in which Africa and India can work together to improve the lives of their people.  
 
The AIMF is also one of many efforts to exploit the synergistic relationship between Africa and India outlined in the India Africa Health Sciences Summit held in 2016. 
 
Africa and India share many challenges, including in health, and the asset of a young population. The AIMF hopes that bringing together researchers from these geographies would lead to sustainable solutions for common problems. 

The relationship between India and Africa is mutually beneficial. India has the technological advances, being one of the world’s leading filers of patents and excelling in the production of generic drugs, and hence can provide learning opportunities for African scientists. Africa provides a conducive environment for research with its genetic diversity, fairly well-developed capacities for clinical trials, and high disease burden. The AIMF hopes to exploit this relationship and contribute to efforts of building a highly skilled and innovative science and technology workforce and thereby advance knowledge economies and ensure more people live healthy, productive lives. 
 
Funding will support collaboration in research in HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, dengue, malaria, vector-borne diseases, parasitic infections, emerging infections, cancer, diabetes, hypertension, health systems research, antimicrobial resistance, microbiome, drug development and general biomedical sciences. 

The profiles of the awardees from the 2018 round of competition are here.

The fund will now be issued as a single call with applications closing on 4th October 2019.

Details about the program can be found here, and information on eligibility and the application process can be found here. Queries can be addressed to Africa-Indiamobilityfund@aasciences.ac.ke