The BEBUC Excellence Scholarship Program: Towards 50 BEBUC Professors and BEBUC basd Graduate Programs
Situation:
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the health sector faces profound challenges driven by persistent insecurity, armed conflict, poverty, and limited access to quality education. The fragile security context disrupts access to essential medical services, weakens health infrastructure, and leads to severe losses of skilled personnel. As a result, millions of people are left without adequate health care. In such a volatile environment, highly trained professionals in Medicine, Public Health, and Health Management are vital to strengthening system resilience, expanding service delivery, and improving health outcomes.
Objectives:
To diversify and reinforce the country´s health workforce, the BEBUC Excellence Scholarship Program plays a critical role. It aims to educate future university professors in missing or undersupplied medical disciplines so they can, in turn, train the next generation of competent health professionals. The focus of BEBUC is the support of carefully selected and continuously mentored Congolese students with outstanding talents in the Life Sciences. BEBUC scholars constitute the best and highest-performing students in the Congo, distinguished by their academic excellence, leadership potential, and commitment to national development.
In combination with strong international partnerships and rigorous selection processes, BEBUC provides scholars with access to high-level academic training, global research standards, and professional development opportunities. Upon completing their studies, scholars return to the DRC to take on leadership positions in universities, hospitals, research centers, and public institutions. Their contributions are instrumental in rebuilding and modernizing key components of the national health system.
The BEBUC Excellence Scholarship Program aims to substantially improve the current, completely insufficient congolese University system, based on the selection of excellent high school students by stringent tests, their mentoring and support during their Bachelor studies in DRC, followed by supported applications to third party sponsors (e.g. by internationally recognized universities) for Master and PhD programme scholarships. After PhD-graduation, BEBUC supports the young scientist to return on DRC professorships. Based on their training according to internationally accepted rules, these new professors with a focus on the life sciences have the possibility to raise the level in teaching and research at Congolese universities to an internationally competitive level as well as to improve the largely still catastrophic situation in the Congolese health services.
Critical measures for the success of BEBUC are
- selection of BEBEC scholars from highly gifted students based on resumees as well as on personal interviews, close mentoring and financial support
- mentoring of applications to third party scholarships for Master- and PhD-programmes at internationally recognized Universities
- maintenance of intense exchanges among the scholars while studying at universities around the globe e.g. by the Virtual External Academie of BEBUC, as well as with their home universities in DRC to keep the focus on a return to DRC alive even after staying at a very attractive study place abroad
- financial support for the re-entry phase in DRC
The BEBUC-program has been designed to be intrinsically sustainable:
- The support in the early phase (Bachelor studies e.g. by EKFS) and also at later phases is granted based on supervised performance
- support of the scholars in competitive applications for scholarships covering tuition as well as housing and living for Master and PHD programmes abroad from the respective Universities, NGOs, gouvernments, etc.
- paving the way to employment contracts for a permanent professorship in DRC
- education of new generations of students according to the internationally competitive level the BEBEC scholars themselves have experienced at their hast universities abroad
The BEBUC idea includes a number of special features. These include e.g.:
- funds provided by sponsors by sponosrs like Else-Kröner-Fresenius Foundation, NGO fUnikin, Fondation Roi Baudouin are used in a very thrifty manner accompanied by continuous progess control
- the program is open at all levels up to shortly before the re-entry phase into the DRC on a professorship for excellent non BEBUC supported candidates
- the goal to apply for a professorship in DRC after successful termination of the BEBUC-cycle is reinforced by systematic scientific and communicative networking between the scholars during their different phases of education
- BEBUC is intrinsically sustainable. After a limited phase of support (core part about 2-3 years, covered by scholarships by EKFS, NGO fUnikin, FRB), the schoplars raise their own third party funds and move to permanent employments at DRC universities in the re-entry phase.
Further information: https://bebuc.org/
