Fahrenheit Scholarships for overseas students awarded

17.11.2022

Three overseas Ph.D. students have been selected to receive the Daniel Fahrenheit Scholarship funded by the Mayor of Gdańsk in consultation with the Fahrenheit Universities. This is the first edition of a new category of scholarships awarded by the City of Gdańsk.

The winners will continue their interdisciplinary research as part of their doctoral dissertation at one of the Fahrenheit Universities during the one-year internship. The winners are entitled not only to a scholarship at PLN 6,500 net per month for the entire duration of their stay, but also to free accommodation.

This is a new category of scholarships for students, this time for overseas PhD ones, which has broadened the range of scholarships offered by the Mayor of Gdańsk since 2005.

– Fahrenheit scholarships in a new version increase the level of internationalization of Gdańsk universities – said Aleksandra Dulkiewicz, Mayor of Gdańsk. – We want to be even more open to the world, because it guarantees progress in science and also a higher level of education. We hope that the Ph.D. scholarships will be of interest.

The new scholarship project was created in collaboration with the Fahrenheit Universities. It was open to scholars who are preparing a doctoral dissertation at a foreign university, are the authors or joint authors of a scientific publication and wish to pursue their scientific interests at one of the Fahrenheit Universities.

– The one-year stay of Ph.D. students at our universities will enable them to start cooperation with foreign research centres or to strengthen cooperation which is already underway. This is also an opportunity to develop new competences in our teams – from the transfer of knowledge to the development of soft skills, such as working in an international, multicultural team, managing such a team or improving foreign language skills – explains Prof. Adriana Zaleska-Medynska, director of the Fahrenheit Universities. – A measurable outcome of such an internship should include publications with foreign teams. It is also worth adding that interns usually bring into the team their enthusiasm for work, creativity, and a different perspective on scientific issues dealt with by us, and may become the initiators of jointly submitted projects in the future.

Building a strong position of Gdańsk as one of Europe’s and the world’s leading research centres is one of the main postulates in the Gdańsk Declaration of Science, which was jointly signed by the Mayor of Gdańsk and the representatives of the Gdańsk higher education institutions on 1 October this year during the opening of the academic year.

Fahrenheit Scholarship holders

The decision on awarding the Mayor of Gdańsk Fahrenheit scholarships was made on 14 November this year during the session of the competition committee in the bench consisting of:

• Grzegorz Kryger – Deputy Director of the Department of Social Development of the Gdańsk City Office – Chairman of the Committee
• Dr. Habil. Agnieszka Zimmermann, Assoc. Prof. – Vice-Rector for the Quality of Teaching, Medical University of Gdańsk
• prof. Jacek M. Witkowski – Head of the First MUG Doctoral School, Medical University of Gdańsk
• prof. Andrzej Czyżewski – Gdańsk University of Technology
• prof. Maciej Bagiński – Gdańsk University of Technology
• prof. Wiesław Laskowski – University of Gdańsk
• prof. Igor Konieczny – University of Gdańsk

Following the evaluation of applications meeting the formal criteria, the committee selected the following winners:

1st place – Anna Panagiota Souri, a Ph.D. student of the University of Crete. During the internship, she is planning to improve her knowledge and broaden her experience in the heterogeneous photocatalysis and techniques used in chemical analysis. Planned research work will pertain to the design, synthesis and analysis of new layered photocatalysts based on a double hydroxide.

2nd place – Maria Alaide de Oliveira of the University of Pernambuco, Brazil. The project applied for comprises research work on obtaining new catalysts based on metal-organic compounds, the characteristics of those photocatalysts and the measurements of photocatalytic activity in the hydrogen generation process.

3rd place – Stabak Roy, a Ph.D. student of the Tripura University, India, whose research plans are related to the operation of rail transport in the urban area of Gdańsk, Gdynia and Sopot and to the use of geospatial and geostatistical applications for that purpose

Host higher education institution: University of Gdańsk

The internship is scheduled to start at the beginning of January 2023.