International Field Schools -  optimal format for the promotion of young scientist

These international field schools, financed by the Volkswagen Foundation, generate maximum sustainability with relatively modest funding. Especially the networking of the young African scientists among themselves, but also with their German fellow students, is promoted more by the close living and research on site than by other formats. Each Field School has an international team of lecturers. In 2009, teachers and students from Germany, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi and Tanzania participated in a three-week program on "Human Evolution" in the far north of Malawi, in 2012, representatives of other nationalities met at the southern end of Lake Malawi for a Field School on "Evolution of the Biodiversity of Lake Malawi" and in 2013, the focus was on aquatic biology with a focus on environmental and water protection at various lakes and river courses in southwestern Uganda. Here 9 lecturers and 25 students from six universities from Germany and Africa participated.

In 2015, 2016 and 2017 field schools on tropical fungi in West Africa took place: "Enhancing Mycological Capacities to Face Food Insecurity and Deforestation in West Africa - A package of three summer schools for a rapid and effective capacity building on mycological know-how for West Africa". They were jointly conceived and implemented by a team from the Goethe University and the University of Parakou in Benin. Numerous students from several West and Central African countries as well as from Frankfurt took part.

Further information about the mycological field schools:  film, fotos