2010 POGO Visiting Professorship Programme

The Partnership for Observation of the Global Oceans (POGO) announces a Visiting Professorship Programme for 2009.

 It is the successor to the highly successful NF-POGO Visiting Professorship programme. The Professorship will allow short visits (2 weeks to 3 months) of distinguished scientists from advanced oceanographic institutes to institutes in developing countries and economies in transition, to provide training and mentoring, to develop collaborations and enhance networking. The programme builds on the successful NF-POGO Visiting Professorship Programme, which has metamorphosed into the NF-POGO Centre of Excellence in Bermuda at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences, and formalises POGO Training initiatives in developing countries, which has been done in the past on an ad hoc basis in responsive mode to requests received.

The goal of the visiting professorship is capacity building in the host institution, leading to enhanced sustained ocean observations to address societal issues of the day. Development of highly-trained scientific professionals is the priority. Promoting contacts, collaborations and networking among institutions of developing and developing countries is another goal.

This programme is seen as a complement to the POGO-SCOR Visiting Fellowship Programme.
Who can apply?
The Visiting Professorship Program is open to oceanographic research establishments and educational institutes in developing countries and in economies in transition. The proposal must be submitted by a senior scientist from the institute wishing to host the visiting professor, and the application must be made after procuring in writing the willingness of the proposed professor to participate in the proposed programme.

What does the fellowship offer?
The programme will cover the international travel costs of the professor and a modest honorarium for the professor. It may be possible for the programme to cover hotel and per diem for the visiting professor in exceptional circumstances, but it is preferred that the host institution cover all the local costs for the visiting professor, as a mark of their commitment to the programme. The programme would also cover modest travel and accommodation costs for inviting students or young scientists from neighbouring areas to the host institution, to benefit from the visit and the training provided by the eminent visiting professor.

The Visiting Professorship must be completed by the end of April, 2011.

What are the Priority Areas?
This programme is seen as a complement to the highly-successful POGO-SCOR Visiting Fellowship Programme, and has the same priorities.

• Argo Floats
• Large-scale, Operational Biological Observations including Biodiversity
• Emerging Technologies for Ocean Observations
• Data management
• Coastal observations/ Coastal Zone Management
• Ocean and coastal modeling

These are the priority areas for the visiting professorship, and the selected POGO Professor should have a scientific interest in one of these areas of work; the corresponding host should have a similar interest, with a related on-going programme that will benefit from the visit.

What are the terms?

The fellowship will provide a round-trip ticket between the home institute of the professor, and the host institute of training; a contribution toward the stay, in exceptional cases, for up to three months stay at the host institute depending on the particulars of the proposed training (actual contribution to be negotiated with POGO; but preference will be given to those institutes who are able to cover all local costs of the visiting professor); a modest honorarium to the professor (£500 for the first 2 weeks, and £250 per each subsequent two weeks; total not to exceed £1,500); travel insurance for visiting professor; and a modest contribution towards travel and accommodation of students and young scientists from the region who will travel to the host institution to take part in the training programme. Total cost of the programme to POGO should not exceed £5,000.
Preference will be given to those institutes that can bear all local expenses incurred by the visiting professor and local costs related to the training itself; POGO may agree to contribute towards these expenses in exceptional cases if sufficient justification is provided, and no case should the total cost to POGO exceed £5,000.
POGO does not cover any of the expenses not agreed to at the time of granting the award.
More details regarding the terms of the fellowship are provided in the application form. Please note it is not possible to submit the form online. It should be sent as an e-mail attachment to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

POGO Visiting Professorship Programme
Plymouth Marine Laboratory
Prospect Place
Plymouth PL1 3DH
UK
e-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

How does one apply?
Applications should come from the host institute wishing to host the visiting professor, after procuring the written agreement from the proposed professor to offer the necessary training. The proposal should be prepared in discussion with the proposed visiting professor, to ensure that there is complete agreement between the proposed training and what the visiting professor is able to provide. Applicants should complete and submit the application form given below. Only applications that are complete in all respects will be considered for the Professorship.

Deadline: The deadline for the next round of applications is 12 April 2010.

Further information together with application forms for all three
programmes is available on the POGO website at

http://ocean-partners.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4&Itemid=36