27 June: Festive celebration of long-term research partnerships and global collaboration

We welcome you to this year’s festive award ceremony of the annual Danida Alumni Prize and the launch of the retrospective study “Opportunities, challenges – and bad weather”. The event is free to attend and open to the public. It takes place 3.30 – 5.30 on 27 June, Dalgas Have, Frederiksberg and is followed by a summer reception at Danida Fellowship Centre from 6.30pm. To attend please email dfc@dfcentre.dk.

See the programme for the study launch, the alumni prize 2019 award ceremony and the
summer reception.

The Danida Alumni Prize 2019 goes to Dr Phan Thi Van
This year, the annual Danida Alumni Prize is awarded to Dr Phan Thi Van for her her ambition, drive and tireless promotion of scientific research in the sustainable development of aquaculture, not only nationally, but also internationally. See the full motivation here.

During my time in Denmark I improved my research methodology that became a key factor of my research in Vietnam, says Dr Phan Thi Van, who earned her PhD in Epidemiology and Food Safety in Aquaculture from the University of Copenhagen in 2010 as a Danida fellow. Today Dr Phan Thi Van is the Director of Vietnam’s No 1 Research Institute for Aquaculture.

It is the third time that Danida Fellowship Centre awards the prize to an eminent Danida alumni, who is making significant positive change in his or her home country or professional field. In 2016, the year the prize was inaugurated, it was awarded to Dr. Tetros Adhanom Gherbreyesus WHO Director-General. The following year Dr Cheikh Mbow, Director Start International received the prestigious prize.

Study launch: The voices of 300 African Danida funded researchers
The research study “Opportunities, challenges and bad weather” presents the results of a retrospective study of three decades of Danida-supported research capacity building projects. The study, which is the first of its kind covering Danida-supported research projects in all of Africa, is based on the experiences and reflections of around 300 African Danida-funded researchers. It has been conducted by Hanne Kirstine Adriansen, University of Copenhagen and Lene Møller, University of Aarhus, with a focus on the broader perspectives of research-capacity development at African universities and research institutions.

“The report expresses a very positive perception of research capacity building amongst the African respondents. The authors asked for critique of the programmes in relation to power imbalences and the politics of knowledge but it was seldom mentioned”, says Bente Ilsøe, Research Programme Manager Danida Fellowship Centre.

New videos of Danida fellows
Five brand new short vidoes featuring present and former Danida fellows will be shown during the event. The videos portait:

– Phan Thi Van from Vietnam, Director, Research Institute Aquaculture No. 1,

– Richard Yao Kofie from Ghana, Principal Research Scientist, CSIR-Institute for Scientific and Technological Information,

– Lillian Tibatemwa-Ekirikubinza from Uganda, Supreme Court Justice,

– Evelyne Lazaro from Tanzania, Senior Research Follow at Sokoine University of Agriculture,

– Cecilia Smith from Ghana, PhD-student, University of Ghana,

– Gildas Hounmanou from Benin, PhD student at SUND(Facultuy of Health and Medical Science), University of Copenhagen.

Since the 1960’s more than 25.000 individuals from Danida partner countries have received Danida fellowships as PhD or Master Students or professionel researchers or participants in Danida Fellowship Centre’s capacity developing courses.

Danida Fellowship Centre manages the grants from the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs to research collaboration projects in low-income and growth countries that Denmark collaborates with. In this same geography, we also design and implement continued learning and capacity development for Danish-funded partners. In addition, we coordinate the Danida Alumni Network. Located in the heart of Frederiksberg, Danida Fellowship Centre supports about 1000 Danida fellows’ study stays each year.

The celebrative event on 27 June is part of the 5th joint Nordic Conference on Development Research.

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