AfOx awards 200 Travel Grants

This month, we awarded the 200th Travel Grant since our establishment in 2016. The AfOx Travel Grants represent a breadth of emerging research collaborations between researchers based in African institutions and the University of Oxford.  

Initiated with the aim of supporting new collaborations between researchers based in African institutions and the University of Oxford, the AfOx Travel Grants are open to all disciplines, all year round. They allow researchers to meet in either Oxford or an African institution to work together on a collaborative project. 

The AfOx Travel Grants were initiated in August 2016. One of the first Grants was awarded to facilitate a collaboration between the Epilepsy Support Foundation in Zimbabwe and the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Oxford.  

“The AfOx Travel Grant has quite literally, changed the entire focus of the Oxford Epilepsy Research Group. It contributed significantly to our being awarded a £4.9 million grant from NIHR to study epilepsy in sub-Saharan Africa.”- Taurai Kadzviti, National Epilepsy Foundation, Zimbabwe and Arjune Sen and Sloan Mahone, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford  

 Since then, we have awarded 200 Travel Grants that have led to research collaborations between 114 African institutions from 32 countries and 70 Oxford based departments.

“I came here to build a new bridge between my home institution in Egypt & the University of Oxford for cutting-edge research in studying genetics and cancer cells.”- Haitham Shaban, National Research Centre Egypt

Such collaborations have facilitated new breakthroughs in the fields of medical sciences, big data engineering and astrophysics, conserving environments and ecosystems, archaeology, and preservation of ancient languages amongst other research areas.

“The AfOx travel scheme is such a valuable way of bringing together researchers to explore cross-disciplinary work together.”- Maureen Kelley, Big Data Institute, University of Oxford 

 “The travel grant provided me access to cutting-edge academic research, resources and literature that I may not have had access to otherwise.”-Gill Black, Sustainable Livelihoods Foundation, South Africa