Please note that we still accept applications from Non-European students until March 16th, 2015 (the application should arrive at the AFEPA coordination office in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium on that day at the latest). The deadline for applications from European students is April 30th, 2015.
Please see the admission’s page for more information.

The second year placements for the 2015/16 academic years have been announced.
Students will go to all five full partner universities in the consortium and we are also discussing with individual students the practical terms of combining their two mobilities in Europe with a stay at one of the associated partner universities, the University of Alberta in Canada or the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile.

Dear alumni of the AFEPA programme.

Earlier this year I mentioned that we would have an alumni day at the 2015 AFEPA summer school in Barcelona and that we would have competition which may help facilitate your participation in the summer school.
Voila, here are some specifics:

The date:
The alumni event will take place on Friday, July 31, 2015, thus at the end of the first week of the summer school.
That way, you could arrive on Thursday night and stay for the weekend to meet and interact with the current AFEPians and the various members of faculty that will be present.
You are also welcome to participate in the workshop (specifics will be announced later, notably whether it will be in the first or second week).

The competition:
We are offering up to six travel grants, three for alumni whose are currently involved in academic research (pursuing a PhD position at a university or research institute) and three for alumni whose current professional activities are in non-academic fields in the private or public sector.  The grants consist of 800 Euros for students (EU or Non-EU) who are located outside of Europe and 400 Euros for those students (EU or non-EU) who are located within Europe.  In addition, the AFEPA consortium will cover the accommodation for these grantees for three nights in the main student building of the summer school (thus Thursday, Friday and Saturday night).

To be considered for the travel and accommodation grant, we ask you to submit by April 30th at the latest a 300 word proposal on your current activities.  For those of you pursuing in a doctoral programme, you could describe your research question or an aspect of it. For those of you working in this non-academic, you could describe an interesting aspect of your professional life.
The AFEPA consortium will consider all proposals and then select the 6 most interesting and original ones and let you know its decision in early May, so you can make your travel arrangements.  Those selected will have to present the content of their proposal during the alumni day at the summer school in front of all summer school participants.

Note that all of you are more than welcome to participate in the summer school event with this call for proposals. The above detailed competition is a financial incentive to encourage participation, but also to enable those of you coming from further away to eventually participate in the event. If you would like to come on your own, you are welcome to arrange your own housing or to stay with the other AFEPians (about 35 Euros per night in a shared room).   In any case, you would have to let us know your plans by May 31th, so we can make arrangements.

It will be a fun summer school and we are looking forward to receiving your proposals.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Cheers
Henrich

in this email I would like to provide you with some information about the 2015 summer school,
which will take place in Barcelona from July 27th to August 07 2015.
Please note that you should react regarding housing and who you would like to share a room with.

Participation:
Please note that all AFEPians are obliged to participate in the summer school for the entirety of its duration.

Arrival:
You should arrive on Saturday July 25 or Sunday August 6th. If you decide to come earlier, please note that you cannot yet move into the student housing that we have reserved for you and you would have to cover the extra nights at your own expense and at a hotel or youth hostel.

Housing:
It is classic student dormitory housing, and just like in Budapest, there will be two of you per room. You are welcome to arrange who you would like to board with by yourself. If you have found someone to share the room
with please send me email with the names of the two students.

Programme:
The first week of the summer school will be devoted to the presentations of the Masters thesis proposals (first year students) and Master thesis defenses (second year students), see below for more information, followed by the alumni event on the Friday of the first week. There will be a coulple of invited speakers for that event plus of course the alumni presentations. You have seen the competition on the internet: Alumni will give presentations about their post-AFEPA activities. It will be a great time to do a bit of net-working and to get some confirmation that “there is life after AFEPA”.
We will likely have an excursion/field trip on the Saturday of the first week.
The second week of the summer school will consist of the workshop. The topic of the workshop will be announced later, but it will take place from Monday through Wednesday or Thursday morning, followed by a exam (yes, there will be an exam, as you will also received academic credit for your participation in the summer school) and the regular evaluation of both the programme and the summer school. On Friday then, the summer school will close with the graduation ceremony.

Costs:
Please note that the AFEPA programme will pay for the accomodation during the summer school and the social events (field trip, bbq, etc). However, we expect you to cover your travel to the summer school and your meals during it. The university cafeteria will still be open during the first week of the summer school, so meals will be pretty affordable and Jose Gil, the coordinator at UPC, is organizing a special lunch option for the second week. There may be kitchen facilities in the place where we will stay, but I am not sure at this point on any specifics. We will send you a more specific update soon.

Master thesis defense and proposal sessions:
For first-year students: you will be expected to present in a 5-10 minutes power point presentation the idea of the research you would like to pursue for your Master’s thesis.
Your presentation will be followed by a 15-20 minutes discussion of all students and faculty present.  This is a good occasion to receive feedback on your idea and you should come prepared to actively participate in this brainstorming session. This means that this session should not be the first time you think about a possible topic, but you should already come with certain avenues you would like to pursue and that you would like to receive feedback on.
For second year students: you will be expected to defend your Master’s thesis. Note that there may be a separate defense or other event you may have to do at your second year university (depending on where you are), but for most students, the grade obtained for the defense at the summer school  will flow into the grade you will receive for your master’s thesis at your second year university. You should therefore become prepared to give a 15-20 minute presentation on your thesis. Following your presentation, the academic faculty in the room will pose you questions about your work for up to 30-40 minutes. At the 2014 summer school in Bonn you witnessed the thesis defense sessions for the students graduating in 2014 and you therefore know what to expect.

Below some news from Janina Grabs, AFEPA Alumni from the 2012/14 intake, who just published her first academic journal article:

The 2015 summer school was organized on the campus of the Universidad politecnica de Catalunya in Castelldefels (Barcelona), only 500 meters from the beach. Many students made regular use of this geographic proximity (see here for pictures).

One highlight of the 2015 summer school was the alumni event on July 31st, during which 7 alumni from previous AFEPA intakes reported on their current activities. Their interesting presentations were always followed by a discussion on the steps taken by the alumni to enter the professional and academic lives. The current AFEPA students learned valuable insights on various avenues to explore in their post-AFEPA careers. One particularly interesting testimony by Do Kim Thanh focused on the “reverse culture shock” she experienced after leaving Europe for her native Vietnam.  Thanh explained how she dealt with the lack of interest by family members and friends on what she had done in Europe and the intense focus and pressure by the same people that she get married and start a family.
A headcount on the alumni day revealed the presence of almost 40 people from 28 different nationalities. Quite the international atmosphere! See here for pictures of some of the people present.

After an intense four days of thesis proposals and defenses and the alumni day, the Saturday of the first week was devoted to an excursion to a volcanic national park (Parc Natural La Garrotxa) about 90 minutes from Barcelona. A pleasant 30 minute walk on a dried up lava bed through a dense forest was followed by guided tour of the park was a detailed explanation on the geologic formation and history of the area and the park (pictures here).
The second visit of the day was to “La Fajeda”, a dairy farm and major yogurt and ice cream producer. Originally started as a social project focusing on occupational therapy for mentally or physically handicapped people, the farm today employs more than 200 people and has become the third largest producer of yogurt in Catalonia.  After a tour of the dairy operation and very detailed explanations on its specifics, we were invited for to a yogurt/ice cream tasting, and the products served were truly delicious.

During the second week of the summer school, Dr. Slim Zekri, from the Sultan Qaboos University in Oman, gave a lecture on “Multicriteria Decision Making for Agriculture and the Environment.” Click here for the lecture notes and other materials on the course. The lecture completed on Thursday with a short exam, which thus completed the academic part of the summer school.

On Aug 7th, the 2015 AFEPA summer school finished with the graduation ceremony on that morning. Bruno Henry de Frahan, Thomas Heckelei and Chema Gil delivered the AFEPA certificates to the 14 graduating students (see here for pictures). One certificate was delivered in absentia, as Jisan Afrin from Bangladesh could not participate in the event because of her advanced pregnancy. However, she promised to name her baby “Afepa”, which placated the AFEPA consortium.

Another fun summer school then came to a close but everybody is already looking forward to the 2016 summer school in Louvain-la-neuve.

As of Sep 15th, interested students can again submit their application to the AFPEA programme via the AFEPA application plattform accessible here: http://sites.uclouvain.be/afepa/application/

All other relevant information can be found on the programme webpage: sites.uclouvain.be/afepa

The UCL AFEPians and various alumni and other interested students had a fun field trip on
Nov 7, 2015. Please click on the picture for the report and pictures of the event.

After spending a little bit more than three weeks as the AFEPA Avant Garde in Edmonton I can only say few about it. It is a place with many extremes where you have low temperatures and high expectations. Though I am from Austria and I already saw one or the other rough winter, this beats everything what I have experienced so far. There is only bad equipment and no bad weather. That’s at least what they say.

From an academic point of view classes are really interesting and demanding. Professors share their vast professional experience with students and supply various practical applications of the introduced theory. Especially from an environmental economic point of view a stay at the U of A can be very rewarding. There are various specialists dealing with Cost – Benefit Analysis and similar tools which are commonly applied in the economic valuation of the environment. In Canada and especially in Alberta, with its huge natural assets, the extraction of natural resources play a crucial role for the economy. Given this context, the Department for Resource Economics and Environmental Sociology can provide a lot of expert knowledge and know how.

Currently I am enrolled in the classes Economic Impact Assessment, Economic Valuation of Eco System Services, Environmental and Conservation Policy and Political Philosophy. Because of their intensity, all classes require weekly reading and preparation time. This is a bit challenging because I also need to work on my master’s thesis and therefore time runs quite short.

Furthermore do I have access to most of the university facilities which includes vast amount of literature, studying facilities, a huge fitness centre and even a small office desk. All facilities are very modern and you can see that the university must have good funding . In general you easily get support from professors and university stuff and the acclimatisation to the local system is quite easy.

Above university business I have not been able to do a lot until now and I have not seen too much of the city so far. I got the chance to introduce me and the AFEPA program a little bit at a pizza recruitment party at the department. Also fellow students took me once with a stretch limousine to a lazertag game, which was really funny because neither have I been in a limousine, nor have I played lazertag so far. They also took me to an ice hockey game, where you could see the transformation of brave citizens to hooligans very obviously. They guaranteed me that this only happens with this sport in Canada. Further I plan to visit Jasper and Banff national park in the Rocky Mountains which are supposed to be one of the most beautiful places in Canada and only a four hours drive in the west of Edmonton. I also want to see the oil sand fields of Fort McMurray and its tremendous impact on nature which also is just few hours away from Edmonton.
Below a few photographic impressions from wintery Edmonton.

To be continued…..
Zeno Piatti,
AFEPians 2014/16 Intake

The topic of this year’s AFEPA summer school workshop will be organised from July 19 to July 23 in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium under the following topic:

Field Experiments to Inform Policy and Programs in Development Economics

The lecturer will be Professor Nicholas Magnan from the University of Georgia, USA.

This workshop is open to ten graduate students for an administrative fee of €122 in addition to the students currently studying in their AFEPA Master’s programme. Pre-requisites are intermediate micro-economics and econometrics and fluency in English.

Please click here for the programme announcement including instructions on how to apply. The deadline for application is May 31.

The selected 10 students have access to student rooms for 25 Euros per night in Louvain-la-neuve during the duration of the workshop and will be informed about this possibility after their participation is confirmed.

Our very own Zeno Piatti (first year Louvain-la-neuve, second year Budapest) just returned from his 3 months stay at the (AFEPA partner) University of Alberta as part of his second year. You may remember his freezing first experiences that he posted right after his arrival at Alberta in January. For the continuation of this adventures please read his second report below:

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Retrospection on Exchange Term at the University of Alberta, Canada
by Zeno Piatti – Fuenfkirchen
(visit to Alberta from Jan to Apr 2016)

My stay at the U of A was general speaking very nice. Although I had my ups and downs I enjoyed my time in Canada. Not only from an academic, but also from a personal point of view I faced some challenges which are a life time experience and will be hard to forget.

During my academic career this was my fourth stay at a different university and I always find it quite thrilling to see various scientific customs, traditions and approaches. The classes I attended were relatively demanding and I spent a good amount of time for preparation, homework and term-papers. I especially liked their practical approach to different topics, while not missing a good theoretical introduction. Though I think theory is important, it is in my perspective the practical relevance, that gives value to knowledge. Classes were for me mostly interesting, because of their practical implications and their insight in daily routine. In some classes the downside of this intensive courses were for once the concentration on mainstream methods and theories. This lead sometimes to a non pluralistic view on the issues as stake, but I also have to admit that due to time constraints it would have been quite difficult to go into such a depth and width on the same time.

The department of Resource Economics and Environmental Sociology provided me with a cubical next to its graduate students. This was nice because I had my personal place of work, I could exchange with the local students and get an idea about their academic work.

If I could find spare time I tried to see as much as possible from the country. The University Outdoors Club is an association which organizes trips into nature and helped me quite a lot to discover Canada’s countryside. Therefore I had the chance to go skiing at Jasper and Banff National Park. Both are at the heart of the Rocky Mountains and are surrounded by fabulous mountains. Sometimes they really made the European Alps look like boring and shapeless hills. I also went for a week hiking at Waterton National Park, at the border to the US. Being at those places redefined my conception of the term wilderness, as in some parts it was almost impossible to see any human being for several hundred kilometers. Through those trips I also saw some parts of the huge agricultural enterprises in Alberta. Machinery was double the size what I am used from Europe, fields wider than the eye could see and no-till farming seems to have superseded the use of the plough.

Although I have already been to the US and Canada for holidays, it was funny to live there for a while and get to see beyond the view of a tourist. Having had to search for housing, deal with administrative problems and see into the daily life in Edmonton was interesting and made me value certain things at home which you could not find there.

All in all I would highly recommend to every AFEPA student to make use of the opportunity to visit the University of Alberta if her interests fit with what is being taught at the university!

Some impressions:

Impressions Piatti: University of Alberta

Impressions Piatti: University of Alberta

Impressions Piatti: University of Alberta

Impressions Piatti: University of Alberta

Impressions Piatti: University of Alberta

The 2016 AFEPA Summer School, organized in Louvain-la-neuve between July 18 and July 27 will actually start out with a field trip. Please find below the programme for that field trip.
Note that AFEPA pays for everything except food and drink:

Programme Summer Field Trip, July 18th:
-7:30 Meeting Point Parking 20 UCL Campus

-9:00-10:30: Guided visit of BelOrta (Fruit and Vegetable Auctioneer)
www.belorta.be

-11:30 – 12:30: Distribution Center Delhaize (Supermarket Retailer)

-12:30 – 13:30: Lunch

-13:45 – 15:00: Visit of the “Atomium” in Brussels.

-15.30 – 17:30: Visit of the Cantillon Brewery, Brussels
http://www.cantillon.be

-18.30: Invited dinner in Bruxelles

Please see the this page for the entire programme of the summer school

The AFEPA consortium has added the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (UCSC) in Milano, Italy, as a new partner university. Please find more information on the university, its cours offer and expertise in the academic fields related to AFEPA on this website. UCSC will replace Corvinus University of Budapest who has decided to leave the consortium. .

Check out the great 10 minutes summer school of the 2015 Barcelona available here.. It describes all the major features of the summer school, which were a four-day workshop, student presentations of their master’s thesis (second year students) or the proposals for their master’s thesis (first year students), field trips and the graduation ceremony.
There are also nice scenes from the student’s social activities, which consisted of visits to the beache, restaurants, parties, and most interesting of all, a visit to a FC Barcelona football match. This last point is of particular frustration to the author of this post, who did not have the opportunity to go along……

The AFEPA consortium is staying in contact with its alumni and has therefore assembled an
overview of the current post-AFEPA professional activities from the Afepians from the 2010/12-2013/15 intakes. For details please see the alumni section of this website.

The 2017 summer school of the AFEPA programme will take place at the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya in Barcelona from Thursday July 20 to Friday, July 28.
Please go to the summer school section of the website for more information.
Just as a warm-up, the video from the last Barcelona summer school is available here.

Please find under the following link the impressive list of academic publications by AFEPians:
http://sites.uclouvain.be/afepa/publications/
Our alumni have produced 45 peer-review paper publications and 15 oral presentations and professional conferences.

The updated version of the AFEPA handbook is now availabe here

The AFEPA programme is opening the Workshop at this year’s summer school in Barcelona up to 10 interested non-AFEPA students. Please find more information in the official workshop announcement available under this link.
The workshop with the title “Perspectives on International Agriculture and Rural” will be taught by Professor Ruben G. Echeverría, Director General of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture – CIAT in Cali, Colombia.
In addition to the interesting topic and the renowned lecturer, the workshop and the associated social activities are a great networking event. Furthermore, the event is very affordable at very low housing and participation costs for the five days.