Other collaboration
ISP has specific agreements with universities, research institutions and agencies.
ISP is also assigned by Sida as the coordinating entity for the Swedish activities in all Swedish governmental bilateral research programmes.
African Network for Women in Astronomy
African Network for Women in Astronomy (AfNWA) was set up in 2019 to connect and support women in astronomy across the African continent. Every year the network assigns awards to women astronomers in recognition of their scientific achievements and contributions to society. ISP Alumna Priscilla Muheki is on of the founders of the network. AfNWA is part of the African Astronomical Society (AfAS).
ISP sponsors the Women in Astronomy in Africa Awards.
American Institute of Physics (AIP)
Since 1999, ISP has had an informal agreement with American Institute of Physics (AIP) about the books that they receive from various publishers for review in the AIP journal “Physics Today”.
AIP collects these (new) books and sends them in batches to different departments of physics indicated by ISP. ISP pays the shipping charges. A typical batch contains about 300 books.
This joint cooperation affects current and future scientists in a direct way by assisting universities with stocking their libraries with newer and more current books.
In 2022, ISP sent AIP books to partners in Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Sri Lanka och Tanzania, but over the years ISP partners in the following countries have received books from AIP:
- Asia: Bangladesh, Cambodia, Laos, Sri Lanka
- Africa: Burkina Faso, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenua, Mali, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia
- Americas: Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Peru, Suriname.
Pan-African Centre for Mathematics (PACM)
The Pan-African Centre for Mathematics (PACM) is a joint initiative between ISP, University of Rwanda (UR), Stockholm University (SU) and International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP).
The project aims at starting a Master’s program in fundamental mathematics under the centre EAIFR (East African Institute for Fundamental Research), which is an ICTP-affiliated regional centre in Kigali, Rwanda. The program will have Pan-African recruitment and provide full funding to the students.
Erasmus+ CBHE project PEP
In 2022, ISP was granted an Erasmus+ CBHE (Capacity Building in Higher Education) project called PEP Professional English Programs, together with UPE, Unit for Professional English and Division of Internationalisation at Uppsala University. Partners in the project are University of Galway in Ireland, University Joseph Ki-Zerbo and University Nazi Boni in Burkina Faso, University of Sciences, Techniques and Technologies of Bamako and University of Arts and Humanities of Bamako in Mali, University San Pedro and Institut National Polytechnique Félix Houphouët-Boigny (INPHB) in Ivory Coast.
The main objective of PEP is to train French-speaking university staff in English and to establish Units for English proficiency in the participating universities.
With this project, ISP continues to address need for French-speaking West Africa to develop their English language proficiency, in order to fully participate in the international science community whereas English is the lingua franca.
Thailand Center of Excellence in Physics (ThEPCenter)
ISP has a long-lasting cooperation with Unviersity of Chiang Mai, Thailand (1982-2005).In 2019, Professor Thiraphat Vilaithong, Executive Director of ThEPCenter, visited ISP and requested a formalized cooperation based on previous relations. In January 2021, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between ISP and ThEPCenter.
The MoU implies that the Thai universities connected to the ThEPCenter may act as hosts for ISP physics postgraduate students and researchers from ISP partner countries. ISP may act as coordinator for Thai physics postdoctoral fellows at Swedish universities.
UNISA-iThemba
A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between ISP and the UNESCO-UNISA-ITLABS/NFR Africa Chair in Nanoscience Nanotechnology, in Pretoria, South Africa, was signed in June 2021.
The agreement allows PhD students and postdoctoral fellows in physics from both African and Asian ISP supported groups and networks to spend up to one year of training in one of the UNESCO-UNISA affiliated academic and technical resources, and member institutions.
Thailand International Cooperation Agency (TICA)
ISP and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) partnered with the Thailand International Cooperation Agency (TICA) and Thailand Science Research and Innovation (TSRI) at the National Research Council of Thailand (NRCT) under the Thai Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Innovation.
This partnership offers scholarships to PhD students in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. Students are registered at Thai Universities, where they spend two years of their PhD training, with one intermittent year in Sweden.
In 2019, the responsibilities of TRF were transferred to the Thailand Science Research and Innovation (TSRI) at the National Research Council of Thailand (NRCT) under the Thai Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Innovation.
So far, four PhD students have graduated. All of them from Myanmar.
