Addis Ababa University has awarded 36 thematic research teams through the fourth round thematic research grant scheme on November 3, 2016.

Principal Investigators of the research teams received the signed commitment from Prof. Tassew Woldehanna, AAU’s Vice President for Research and Technology Transfer.

Speaking on the occasion, Prof. Tassew noted that the number of thematic researches AAU supports is increasing since the beginning of the scheme in 2012.

During the first round of the thematic research grant scheme in 2012, AAU funded 11 thematic researches.

Consecutively, in 2013 and 2014, the university financed a total of 53 thematic researches of which 32 were funded in 2014.

Each thematic research team at AAU receives a total of half a million birr as seed money that supports research undertakings up to three years of time.

Prof. Tassew also indicated that the involvement of AAU’s staff in the small adaptive, problem solving research grant, a scheme designed to support less multi-disciplinary research programs at AAU, has increased this year.

Last year alone, a total of 52 research proposals benefited from the small adaptive, problem solving research grant while more than 70 proposals are selected to receive the grant this year.

In line with increased involvement of AAU’s staff in various thematic research areas identified and financed by the University, the number of recipients of publication incentives increased as well.

The program awards AAU staff members who publish articles on reputable journals with 10,000 birr per article.

In 2013, more than 200 articles published by AAU staff members were awarded while over 320 articles published in 2014 benefited from the publication incentive program.

Additionally, more than 360 articles published in 2015 are selected to receive the publication incentive award this year.

The Office of the Vice President for Research and Technology Transfer administers the thematic research grant; the small adaptive, problem solving research grant; and the publication incentive program for the University.