CIP Prepares Potential Applicants for AHP Post-Doctoral Grant
The Centre for International Programmes (CIP), University of Education, Winneba (UEW), has organised a two-day workshop to prepare potential applicants for the next call for African Humanities Program (AHP), post-doctoral fellowship applications.
The two-day workshop, held from Wednesday, 14th to Thursday, 15th October, 2020, at the Central Campus Conference Room, Winneba, witnessed AHP advisors and mentors facilitating the workshop via zoom. Participants were exposed to the basics of the AHP grant application processes.
On day one, a Senior Scholar, Mentor, and Advisor, AHP, Dr. Jemima Asabea Anderson took participants through “Overview of AHP Program and Objectives”; a Reviewer, Senior Scholar, Mentor, and Advisor, Prof. Oyeniyi Okunoye presented on the topic “Writing a good AHP Research Proposal/Application Essay 1 (getting the basics right, research problem, introduction and background to the study, and research question)”.
Another Reviewer, Senior Scholar, Mentor, and Advisor, Prof. Olutayo Adesina climaxed the presentation session for day-one on the topics “Writing a good AHP Research Proposal/Application Essay 2 and a good AHP Research Proposal/Application Essay (the “dos” and “don’ts” of AHP fellowship application) Thinking like your Reviewer”.
Day two started with a forum on ‘Ensuring Application Success’ facilitated by Prof. Okunoye and Prof. Adesina. Dr. Asabea Anderson explained to participants how the application forms were processed.
Participants asking questions for further clarification
Mentors later met with applicants in groups of two to six to discuss draft application essays on getting the basics right, research problem, introduction and background to the study, research questions, literature sources and methods, significance and justification of the study, work plan, and writing style. There was also a plenary session chaired by the Dean, CIP, Prof. Yaw Sekyi-Baidoo where all mentors and participants discussed lessons learned from the small-group sessions.
Prof. Sekyi-Baidoo, CIP Dean
Prof. Sekyi-Baidoo, in his closing remarks, commended the facilitators for their time and the admirable presentations. He, however, charged participants not to sleep on the things they had learnt but rather work on them quickly and then submit their applications.
Assistant Registrar, CIP, Mr. Seth Tompoli, in an interview, was confident that the workshop had imparted the potential applicants.
“From the presentations by the potential applicants or the participants of the workshop, I believe that they really benefited from it. Even though the workshop was geared towards getting them prepared to apply for this fellowship, they have gained some knowledge that they can always apply whenever they want to research. Some of them had previously applied but they could not win the fellowship. So, once they presented the proposal to the facilitators, they pointed out their weak points.
Mr. Seth Tompoli
“I could also deduce from the expressions of the participated in the workshop that they were happy with it and I am very sure that a number of them will win the award, it will help UEW to soar higher,” he stated categorically.
AHP is a fellowship sponsored by the American Council for Learned Societies (ACLS). It only targets research in humanities devoid of numerical base research but more of qualitative research. It has its own criteria for qualification hence, the workshop to groom potential applicants to be able to apply for the fellowship.
The fellowship is a post-doctoral fellowship meaning an applicant should have had his or her PhD already but the PhD should not be more than eight years old.
Among other things, qualified applicants would be given money to fund their research, and to complete the research ideally within a year.
AHP is only interested in researches geared towards further developments that would affect human society positively.
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