Academician awarded postdoctoral fellowship in Germany

PESHAWAR: Dr Murad Ali, assistant professor and head of the Management Studies Department, University of Malakand, has been awarded Germany’s most competitive and highly prestigious Alexander von Humboldt (AVH) postdoctoral fellowship.
A communiqué said he is the first Pakistani to be awarded the fellowship in the category of social sciences. The fellowship is open to scholars of all nationalities and disciplines worldwide and is offered solely on the basis of academic and research achievements of the scholars as there are no quotas for individual countries or specific disciplines.
The selection committee includes academics from all fields of specialisation. Between 1953 and 2015, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation has granted fellowships to 26,000 scholars from 140 countries, which means less than three fellows to every recipient country per year. Also, 52 of the Foundation’s fellows have earned Nobel prizes in various fields. The foundation maintains a strong and lively network of its alumni the world over.
During his postdoctoral fellowship, Dr Murad Ali will work in collaboration with Professor Dr Stephan Klingebiel, who is head of Department of Bilateral and Multilateral Development Cooperation at the German Institute of Development at Bonn.
The key aim of the research project is to examine fundamental issues related to development cooperation, the political economy of foreign aid and development effectiveness in Pakistan.
Prof Dr Johar Ali, vice-chancellor of University of Malakand, congratulated Dr Murad Ali on his excellent achievement and stated that the university is proud of him and his research accomplishments. He said he was sure that the distinguished faculty member would bring more laurels to his university and country during his research stay in Germany.
Prior to this, Dr. Murad Ali had earned a PhD from Massey University, New Zealand, in 2012 on a scholarship from Higher Education Commission (HEC).
Among more than 60 HEC-funded students, he was the first Pakistani scholar to complete his doctoral studies from Massey University.
He has published and presented several peer reviewed papers in conferences in New Zealand, Australia, Malaysia, Japan, South Korea and USA and has won several research grants from various national and international organisations.