Awards for researchers from developing and transition countries

The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation grants Georg Forster Research Awards, each valued at €60,000.

Five researchers will receive this year’s Georg Forster Research Awards, which are granted by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. The award honours researchers from developing and transition countries who have earned international recognition for their research work and seek to solve development-related issues. The award winners are nominated by specialist colleagues from Germany and invited to establish or expand collaborative projects with them. Valued at €60,000 each, the Georg Forster Research Awards are financed by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.

These are the newly selected award winners:

• The pharmacologist Mohamed A. Farag is a professor at Cairo University in Egypt. As a Georg Forster Research Award winner he will work together with specialist colleagues at the Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research in Bremen.
• The physicist Andrew Forbes is a professor at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. The award will enable his collaboration with colleagues at the Institute of Microstructure Technology at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Karlsruhe.
• The geologist Aral I. Okay is a professor at the Eurasia Institute of Earth Sciences in Istanbul, Turkey. With the help of his award, he will conduct research at the Institute of Geological Sciences at the Freie Universität Berlin.
• The religious studies scholar Abdulkader Tayob is a professor at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. In Germany, he will work with specialist colleagues from the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO) in Berlin.
• The special needs education expert Tirussew Teferra is a professor at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia. With the award he will intensify his collaboration with the Institute of Prevention, Inclusion and Rehabilitation Research at LMU in Munich.

The Humboldt Foundation is currently accepting nominations for the next round of the Georg Forster Research Award. The closing date is 31 October 2020. 

This research award is named after the naturalist, tr

Further information

• Programme information Georg Forster Research Award
• Dossier: Research Cooperation with Developing Countries

The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation

Every year, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation enables more than 2,000 researchers from all over the world to spend time researching in Germany. The Foundation maintains a network of well over 29,000 Humboldtians from all disciplines in more than 140 countries worldwide – including 55 Nobel Prize winners.