The Turkey Representation of the Heinrich Böll Stiftung has been supporting graduate students with a scholarship program since 2008 with the aim of supporting progress in rural development and energy and helping young people put together long-term policies in these areas as the decision makers of the future. We provide scholarships for a maximum of three semesters starting with the second or third semester to graduate students who have chosen rural development or alternative energy as the core topic of their research and who want to write their master on these topics.
As an independent political non-governmental organization aligned with the German political party Alliance 90/The Greens, we describe ourselves as an active green network extending across the world. In this connection, the foundations of the scholarship program we are conducting rest on our values of ecology, sustainability, democracy, human rights, justice, and gender mainstreaming. We question what we must radically change in practice and in the realm of thought for sustainable living and try to create policies for these changes. Along with our other projects, we are engaged in initiatives in Turkey to have measures in place against climate change; to have fossil fuels replaced by clean and renewable sources of energy; and to see the realization of a just rural development that is in harmony with nature and upholds gender mainstreaming. We work in partnership with the non-governmental organizations and scientists in Turkey on these projects.
We provide €150 monthly and at the beginning of two semesters to cover research expenses and book purchases in order to support students wishing to do research in the specified areas under our scholarship program.
Our scholarship students are extremely successful academically and have developed themselves socio-politically as well.
Our scholarship students are open to interdisciplinary approaches to research that are innovative and out of the ordinary. Their scientific addressing of issues is critical and constructive. They enrich their own ideas by taking an active part in our multifaceted program. In addition to the reports they regularly submit on their educational progress for the duration of the scholarship program, they give a presentation on their thesis to a panel of experts comprising journalists, academicians and NGO representatives in the month of January following the commencement of the scholarship program.
The deadline for application for the next scholarship cycle is 19 December 2012; please find further details at www.tr.boell.org.
Notes from a stipendiary
In December 2011, I completed the graduate program that I began at the Landscape Architecture Department of Ankara University in September 2009. I found out about the Scholarship Program of the Turkey Office of the Heinrich Böll Stiftung Association on my school’s website, the Science Institute, during the first few months of my graduate studies. The program’s focus on providing grants mainly to students who had chosen rural development or renewable energy/energy efficiency for their master topic was what made it different from other programs. Personal research about the program revealed the Association’s approach to and activities in the fields of environment, ecology and energy efficiency, which made me even eager to join this scholarship program. As a result, I decided to do my master on “An Energy-Effective Landscape Planning Approach in the Context of the Environment and Sustainable Development – the Urla, ‹zmir Example.”
The conferences I attended during the program and the professionals from different disciplines I met at these meetings both contributed to my graduate work and helped me acquire alternate perspectives. The Heinrich Böll Stiftung Association’s efforts to have scholarship students attend conferences it staged or sponsored were valuable opportunities for us to receive additional benefits from its support. An example of this was the meetings staged in various provincial seats and counties by the Rural Development Initiative Group, a protégé of the Association, where important issues pertaining to rural development were addressed and discussed by speakers from a variety of professional disciplines, backed up with local field trips and workshops. We were encouraged to assume an active role in these meetings, not merely as an attendee, but at times as speaker or moderator. Moreover, the Association provided me with all possible support so that I could attend activities such as the Landscape Architecture Convention, which is a key event in my particular field.
Additionally, the preliminary master thesis presentation meeting that was a part of the scholarship program afforded scholarship students significant benefits by having our thesis evaluated from different viewpoints. I believe we not only gained new insights by sharing the knowledge, experience and methods of fellow scholarship students, but also enjoyed the chance to improve our master work in light of the invaluable criticisms and recommendations of the judges. (Nihan Yeğin)