Fellowship in Nepal

The scholarship will be awarded to candidates applying for M.Sc. and Ph. D. studies at Institute of Forestry and other relevant Universities or Institutes in Nepal such as Kathmandu University, Pokhara University and Colleges, Purbanchal University and Colleges. Priority will be given to forestry institutes/colleges located near to the operational areas of the FRA Nepal Project.

RationaleForest Resource Assessment in Nepal (FRA Nepal) Project is a bilateral co-operation between Governments of Nepal and Finland for five years (2010 ? 2014) to conduct forest resource assessment over the entire country. Key objectives of FRA Nepal Project are: strengthening institutional capacity building, maintaining forestry sector information systems, collecting data of all forest based resources and data sharing among forestry organizations. Climate Change and REDD are gaining more importance and they demand updated forest cover map and fresh data on forest, biomass and soils. National level baseline data collection is carried out by using Remote Sensing technology and ground based sampling. FRA Nepal Project is implemented under the Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation (MFSC) and the Department of Forest Research and Survey (DFRS) is the executing organization.Department of Forest Research and Survey (DFRS) is the key department for FRA Nepal Project. Institutional capacity of DFRS was improved significantly during the last National Forest Inventory Project called Forest Resource Information System Project funded by the Finnish Government. Few staff of the department has been educated abroad. However, the available budget and number of persons allocated for required work is not sufficient. As a research institution, DFRS does not have a very strong track record in international publishing and owing FRA related research. There are no research activities carried out at Ph.D. level. In this backdrop, the FRA Nepal Project will develop capacity of DFRS to lead all the forest information, monitoring and dissemination activities. As forest resource assessment process and information is not only a concern of one department in the Ministry, FRA Nepal Project will enhance institutional linkages among departments under the Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation (MFSC). FRA Nepal Project has plan to provide scholarship to ten qualified staffs (five for Department of Forest Research and Survey, two for Department of Forest, one for Department ofSoil and Watershed Management, one for Department of Plant Resources and one for Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation) for M.Sc. degrees and to three qualified staffs from Department of Forest Research and Survey for Ph.D. degrees during the project period (2010-2014 November).Time FrameThe scholarships will be granted annually. The scholarship will be provided for two years in case of M.Sc. and for two years in case of Ph.D. scholarships. The Scheme for Scholarships is applicable from 2011 to November 2014 along the programme period of FRA Nepal Project and it could be extended only in exceptional cases.

For more information check http://franepal.org/articles/fra_scholarship_2011_updated.pdf