Else Kröner Fellowship as part of the BEBUC Excellence Scholarship Program

The EKFS funded BEBUC Excellence Program in the fields of Medicine and Life Sciences will become part of an Else Kröner Fellowship in the future. EKFS will fund the BEBUC Excellence Program with 1.5 million euros from April 2021.


Image: BEBUC scholar
The new BEBUC scholar Grâce Berorwoth, medical student at the Université Catholique in Bukavu, presenting herself to the evaluation committee by a scientific talk at the blackboard.
(© Gentil Ishara, Bukavu, February 2019 )

Project manager: Prof. Dr. Alfred Forchel

Organisation: Förderverein Uni Kinshasa e.V.

Partner country: Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)

Partner organisation in partner country: University of Kinshasa and 24 other universities and schools in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)

Cooperation partners: Investing in People (IIP ASBL) & Sultani Makutano; Holger Pöhlmann - doctor and scientist - foundation; DRC Young Academy of Sciences (DRC YAS)

Term: 36 months

The EKFS funded BEBUC Excellence Program in the fields of Medicine and Life Sciences will become part of an Else Kröner Fellowship in the future. The EKFS will fund the BEBUC Excellence Program with 1.5 million euros from April 2021. For a period of three years, outstanding candidates in the fields of medicine as well as life sciences in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) can apply for a fellowship at all stages of their studies, including PhD scholarships. The Förderverein Uni Kinshasa - BEBUC has been supporting young scientists in the DRC since 2009 in cooperation with the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg. EKFS has been funding the BEBUC scholarship program since 2010 - around 4.5 million euros have been invested in the program to date.

13
neue Professorinnen und Professoren
verbessern die Lehre vor allem in der Medizin, Pharmazie und Chemie an kongolesischen Universitäten.

Situation:

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) ranks within the five poorest countries by GDP per capita worldwide, despite its wealth in natural resources. A main reason for the poverty is the lack of quality education, most specifically of high-quality universities in the life sciences and beyond. 

 

Objectives:

BEBUC supports students with a focus on medicine and life sciences, accompanies them by an intense mentorship on their way to being appointed as a professor.

Indicators:

To date BEBUC has produced 13 new professors, mostly in the fields of medicine,  pharmacy and chemistry, and over 50 teaching assistants, and has thereby improved teaching at Congolese universities.
BEBUC presently supports about 200 exceptionally talented students at high schools and universities.
Up to 2020, BEBUC scholars have published more than 100 articles in high-ranking journals.

 

Measures:
  • Selection of the scholars according to strict and transparent criteria including marks, social skills, personality, future plans
     
  • promotion of gender equality
     
  • Continuous person- and subject-specific mentoring and coaching by the BEBUC Panel
     
  • Annual examination of the scholars at the black board (in DRC) or online
     
  • Regular reports from the scholars on their studies

 

 

Sustainability:

The education of highly talented medical and life-science professors for Congolese universities will permit high-quality teaching of generations of medical, pharmaceutical, and other students, providing improved health care for the country. Sustainability is ensured by permanent professorships in DR Congo.

Special features:

BEBUC is unique in its combination of financial support and intense and personalized mentoring. It paves the way for an internationally compatible higher education in the DRC focusing on an improvement of the health system with unmatched efficiency.

Highly concentrated: the future pediatric surgeon Florent A Zeng, BEBUC master scholar at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, Senegal, practicing an umbilical hernia repair in a four-year-old boy.
Highly concentrated: the future pediatric surgeon Florent A Zeng, BEBUC master scholar at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, Senegal, practicing an umbilical hernia repair in a four-year-old boy.
(© Dr. Cheikh Dieng dit Ndongo, Dakar, February 2021)
Precise surgical technique: BEBUC scholar Sifa Nganza (center), a surgeon during master specialization at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, doing an external fixation of a broken tibia bone, assisted by two colleagues.
Precise surgical technique: BEBUC scholar Sifa Nganza (center), a surgeon during master specialization at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, doing an external fixation of a broken tibia bone, assisted by two colleagues.
(© Private, Kampala, February 2021)

Here you can find further information.