New Cohort of ICTP Associates Supported by Arab Fund

The ICTP Associates Programme has been a pillar to ICTP’s mission ever since the Centre was founded 60 years ago. By providing researchers working in developing countries with the opportunity to visit the centre regularly, and thus maintain connections with a large community of scientists that come to ICTP every year, the programme aims to fight the brain drain from the global South.

Last January, ICTP and the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development opened a call for applications addressed to researchers at all stages of their careers, whose nationality and affiliation are in one of the 22 member states of the Arab Fund, willing to join the ICTP Associates Programme.

Currently in its first edition, the joint ICTP-Arab Fund Associates Programme attracted applications from 144 candidates coming from 14 different countries – Egypt, Morocco and Algeria were the most represented. More than one third of the applications came from women researchers.

Successful candidates were chosen on the basis of research excellence, geographical distribution and gender balance. Ten candidates, five women and five men, were selected to become ICTP Associates and benefit from the opportunity to spend between one and two months at ICTP over the three years of their award. They are:

• Nada Ahmed, Sudan Atomic Energy Commission, Khartoum, Sudan and Taibah University, Saudi Arabia
• Yarub Al-Douri, University of Sharjah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
• Jawaher Abdu Mohammed Al-Tuweity, Sana'a University, Sana'a, Yemen
• Yassir Dinar, Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Oman
• Fadwa El Mellouhi, The Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute, Doha, Qatar
• Farida Fassi, Mohammed V University, Rabat, Morocco
• Kamel Jebreen, Palestine Technical University – Kadoorie, Nablus, Palestine, and An-Najah National University, Palestine
• Ali Nassar, Zewail City of Science and Technology, 6th Of October City, Egypt
• Sanaa Salama, Arab American University, Jenin, Palestine
• Hand Zenia, Université Mouloud Mammeri de Tizi-Ouzou, Tizi-Ouzou, Algeria

During their stay at ICTP, Associates are free to focus on their own research, without administrative and teaching duties; they also have access to all ICTP facilities, including the possibility to use high performance computing resources and to access the international scientific literature available at the ICTP Library.

Associates within the ICTP-Arab Fund scheme are also given the possibility to bring one PhD or master’s student whose journey and stay will be funded by the programme and who will benefit from the opportunity to mingle with international colleagues and thus build new collaborations. Thanks to this new partnership between ICTP and the Arab Fund, the benefits of visiting ICTP will thus propagate faster to future generations and increase the impact of the Associates Programme in the Arab region.

ICTP warmly congratulates these ten researchers on their achievement and looks forward to welcoming them very soon to the Centre!