Scholarship program promoting scientific excellence in biomedical sciences
The BMEP is a unique academic education program, that supports students of medicine or other health sciences in getting an early start into an academic career. Such a career path usually provides students with the best career perspectives. By providing partial financial support obtained through a peer-reviewed application process funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the program does not only expose the student early to international contacts and allows the early acquisition of basic and professional scientific work, it also allows students to early distinguish themselves from their peers by having acquired peer-reviewed funding and having the opportunity to get an early start for independent scientific publication.
The unique design of the program requires the students to have started their scientific work (mainly thesis projects) with a “local mentor” at a German university and get connected to a “future mentor” at an international host institution. This “future mentor” is ideally an established person in his/her field who is either collaborating already with the local institution/laboratory or is an expert in the field in which the student started his/her scientific work at the home institution. In case contacts to potential future mentors are not available, the BMEP staff has the abilities to assist in this process.
Providing a partial scholarship for a maximum time of nine months also requires the students to either acquire additional funding for their stay or contribute from personal sources. This personal contribution and involvement in the organization provides the program with a tremendous amount of flexibility (e.g., a 12 months stay is often possible and clinical rotations are usually included). It is the experience in over 35 years of the existence of this program, that it is the personal desire of the students that has made this program successful. Many academic success stories have begun with participation in the BMEP. We hope to be able to continue this process by being able to provide this unique mentor-to-mentor program to driven and intelligent young students in the field of medicine and other health sciences.