Imperial has launched a new scholarship programme to support PhD students from sub-Saharan Africa.

The scholarship will be for students joining the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and is supported by an endowed gift from the late Professor Shawki Saad, a Professor of Civil Engineering at Khartoum University in Sudan.

The programme will support four students and will fully cover the cost of tuition fees and support students with a stipend and travel costs. The new scholarship programme builds on a previous scholarship for students from Sudan.

The new scholarship programme was announced alongside a student prize for sustainability-related research in sub-Saharan Africa. The student prize and scholarship will help College efforts to tackle global systemic challenges in engineering and sustainability.

Professor Washington Yotto Ochieng, Head of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, explained that the generous support from the Professor Shawki Saad Endowment Fund and Africa Plus Partners will help bring through the next generation of rising stars in engineering and strengthen College links with sub-Sarahan Africa.

Professor Ochieng said: “We want to attract the brightest students from across the globe and this generous new scholarship will help to nurture and develop the next generation of engineering leaders.

“The world is facing many global challenges and the developing world is often much more adversely impacted.

“If we are to solve some of the world’s most pressing challenges such as sustainable transport and water security we need to ensure that engineering research is supported and we have a pipeline of skilled, young engineers in sub-Saharan Africa that can make a vital impact on society.”

This scholarship is open to research projects in areas including: Transport, Fluid Mechanics, Environmental and Water Resources, Structures, Systems, Materials, and Geotechnics.

You can find out more and apply for the scholarship here

Student Prize

Alongside the new scholarship programme the Department has also announced the Africa Plus Annual Prize of $500 for the best Civil and Environmental Engineering MEng student project in a sustainability-related area of relevance to sub-Saharan Africa which will be awarded for at least the next 5 years. The prize is funded by Africa Plus Partners, an asset management company.