The Global Burden of Crop Loss initiative, announces a summer studentship programme providing young scientists with the opportunity to contribute to an exciting and important global effort to develop a global data-driven system to report losses to agricultural crops caused by pests and diseases.

The studentship is providing Bachelor and Masters students with the opportunity to develop their skills by funding short projects related to the Global Burden of Crop Loss. The projects must link to the initiative but the programme is open to proposals from disciplines across natural and social sciences, and the arts and humanities. Projects can cover specific examples, or be general in scope.

As the world tackles the COVID-19 pandemic, the need for evidence-driven systems to help manage and predict devastating outbreaks, impacting on food production, has never been more important, particularly for addressing food security (SDG2 Zero Hunger) and to safeguard the livelihood of the world’s farmers.

Students will receive a sum of up to £250 per week to cover expenses. In the event of a successful application, the institution will manage the distribution of funds.

Students who receive an award must start work on the projects by the 13th of July 2020 and submit a 2000-word report by 19th September 2020 and present their work at an online conference in October [date TBC]. All students must be supervised by an academic at their home institution.

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