The University of Murcia renovates its annual collaboration with the Woman for Africa Foundation through the International Excellence Campus

Since the academic year 2020/2021, the University of Murcia has been collaborating with the Woman for Africa Foundation (FMxA) through the Learn Africa programme, aimed at training African doctoral students and junior researchers at Spanish universities.

The University of Murcia has been offering a scholarship for a six-month research stay in one of its research groups to junior research students in recent editions. On this occasion, after the renewal of the agreement, the University of Murcia, through the Campus Mare Nostrum (CMN), will ease a twenty-two-month predoctoral research fellowship to begin next September, and will include two academic years (2025/2026 and 2026/2027).

During this period, the University of Murcia will cover the commitment to provide the selected researcher with doctorate training by giving a grant which will pay for travel, accommodation, subsistence, and enrolment on the doctoral program costs.

Selection process starts with the call for expressions of interest to research groups. Offers are sent to FMxA and oversee choosing that offer which consider most relevant is the one selected and published in the annual call for applications for the Learn Africa programme in March/April each year, together with other universities and Spanish research centres offers. Subsequently, they do a preselection of the candidates. Finally, the selection of the candidate is done by the research group of each institution.

The general requirements to participate are the following ones:

• Being woman
• Being African
• Have an academic degree in an African university

In the case of the UMU, the characteristics of the posts and the requirements to take advantage of the scholarship of a predoctoral or post-doctoral stage are the following:

• Predoctoral or postdoctoral stage in the Group Knowledge Modelling, processing, and management technologies.
• Modality: Face-to-face
• Duration: 2 academic courses
• Start date/end of the stage: 1st October 2025/31st July 2027
• Language of instruction: English (B2)

Academic requirements:

• Bachelor’s degree and Master of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence.
• Predoctoral PhD student or post-doctorate for young PhD researchers, maximum 5 years.

Line of research of the host group offered for the internship:

• Artificial Intelligence generative models (AI).

• AI applications in medical assistance and environment.

Nowadays, the professor Azanu MIROLGN MEQUANENIT, with a Bachelor of Computer Science and a Master of Information Science and Technology from the University of Gondar, Ethiopia. She is conducting a research doctorate within the group knowledge Modelling, processing, and management technologies of the University of Murcia from October 2025 to June 2027.

The University of Murcia is pleased to be part of this important programme for African women through Campus Mare Nostrum.

Traslation carried out by Lorena Gómez-Vazquez Álvarez, student of 4th year English Studies “Grado de Traducción e Interpretación” at the University of Murcia.