Proposals from additional laboratories wishing to participate in the scheme will be welcomed at any time; see Guidelines for participating laboratories

The areas of research will be broadly restricted to topics that have been covered at a COSPAR Capacity-Building Workshop and applicants must have been a participant in one of these workshops. A number of fellowships will be available each year.

*Note (April 2009) that security requirements at some NASA centres may in practice restrict the nationalities that can easily be accepted there (see the list of “Designated Countries” at http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/oer/nasaecp/).

The Proposed Research Program

These fellowships are intended to foster research collaborations between scientists in developing countries and those at the receiving laboratories; they are not primarily for training purposes. For this reason the quality of the proposed research will be a important criterion for success in selection.

The program must be presented jointly by the applicant for the fellowship and an identified scientist who has agreed to receive and work with the applicant in their laboratory. The laboratory must be one in the above list that has agreed to participate in this program. Confidence of success in setting up a collaboration which is likely to lead to continuing research by the applicant will be essential for selection. It is of course not in general envisaged that the proposed research will be started and completed within the term of the fellowship.

Conditions of the Fellowship

Normally, the fellowship will cover board and lodging for between 2 and 4 weeks at the host institute, which may be in university student accommodation or its equivalent. In practice these costs must be covered by the institute or host themselves, making the willingness of the supervisor to host a student a critical part of the application. If they have been selected, successful applicants will be expected to apply for travel funds in their home country. Some developing-country governments have agreed in principle to support this scheme, and COSPAR will in these cases help applicants to make appropriate contacts. If this is not successful, they will also be able to apply for travel from a COSPAR fund, but this will be restricted to the highest priority applicants. COSPAR is not able to fund any costs except for those directly related to the travel itself.

Fellows will be required to submit a report on their visit within 6 weeks of their return to their home country.

There is no formal bar to holding these fellowships more than once, though an interval of at least one year between successive occasions will normally apply.

Successful applicants will be responsible for obtaining any necessary visas for their visit to the receiving laboratory.

Applications

Applications can be made by submitting the application form to Dr Randall K Smith, the Vice-Chair for Fellowships. Submission by E-mail is preferred. The form can be filled in using the free Adobe Acrobat Reader software; if there a problem, a text version is also available.

. The description of the proposed research should be kept to less than 1500 characters, or approximately 1 page of text. Applications can be made annually for visits to take place within the subsequent year, and will normally not be within 3 months of attendance at a workshop.

Further information about the scheme can be obtained from Dr Randall K Smith of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (rsmith-pcbfp@head.cfa.harvard.edu).

Help and advice in setting up joint programs of research can also be obtained from the following:

Applications will be processed twice each year though they can be made at any time. The processing dates will be 15th September and 15th March. Applications that arrive after these dates will be held to the next round.

Criteria for Selection

Criteria for selection will include:

• The performance of the applicant in the workshop project.
• Evidence for continuing research in the topics of the workshop up to the time of the application.
• The quality of the research program.
• Letters of support from both the applicant’s home institute and the receiving scientist.
• Evidence of a supportive scientific research environment in the applicant’s home institute.