Africa, Near East & South Asia (ANESA) Regional Opportunities

The Africa, Near East, and South Asia (ANESA) region includes a large number of countries across three continents. The ANESA regional group enables research and education collaborations with scientists and engineers in all of Africa, the Near Eastern countries including Turkey, and the countries of South Asia, primarily India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.

The Program supports workshops, short-term planning visits, dissertation enhancement, and research experiences for students.

With the exception of special OISE program activities and ANESA regional funding opportunities (see below), all international collaborative research proposals should be submitted directly to the appropriate NSF research directorate.

ANESA contact information:
Use this link to the NSF Staff Directory section for ANESA. Use this link to the OISE Staff Assignments by Country page.

e-mail: anesainfo@nsf.gov
Phone: 703-292-8707
FAX: 703-292-9176
mailing address:
    ANESA Program, Suite 935
    Office of International Science and Engineering
    National Science Foundation
    4201 Wilson Boulevard
    Arlington, VA 22230

Special ANESA regional opportunities:

• AFRICA: Activities focus on building research collaborations with African scientists and engineers and on providing U.S. students with strong research experiences in Africa. Participation of junior investigators from both the United States and the host country is strongly encouraged. Support is available for projects in all disciplines that NSF funds. Topics that benefit from the region's unique biological, environmental, geological, anthropological, and cultural resources are of interest, but OISE also encourages collaboration in disciplines that are not field-based. NSF contact for North Africa is Osman Shinaishin, for West, Central, and East Africa is Wayne Patterson, and for Southern Africa (including Madagascar) is Elizabeth Lyons.



• NEAR EAST: ANESA supports collaborations with all countries of the Near East -- the countries with the largest number of projects are Turkey and Egypt. In Turkey, the national science funding organization, TUBITAK, reviews and funds the parallel proposals submitted by Turkish collaborators. For Egypt, in addition to projects funded under OISE’s regular programs, NSF participates in a special program under the US-Egypt Joint Science and Technology Program with funds from the Department of State. This program is overseen by a Joint Board which meets annually to set priorities and select proposals for awards. Proposals submitted to this program should be submitted to the appropriate NSF research directorate; ANESA serves to coordinate their NSF review with counterpart review in Egypt. Throughout the region, the ANESA program promotes inclusion of junior researchers in collaborations to stimulate long-term research partnerships. NSF contact is Osman Shinaishin.



• SOUTH ASIA: Within this region, collaborations with India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh have developed in many important scientific areas. Other countries in South Asia where there have been fewer collaborations include Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives. NSF support for junior U.S. researchers and students working in South Asia is increasing and collaborations with senior scientists have high scientific value for U.S. scientists. They also offer attractive partnership opportunities for U.S. scientists because the projects are frequently enhanced with financial support for foreign collaborators from their respective Ministries of Science and Technology. In addition to activities supported under programs listed on the OISE home page, there is a special opportunity for researchers pursuing collaborative activities with India - the NSF/DST Joint program. NSF contact for Pakistan is Osman Shinaishin and for the other countries of South Asia is Marjorie Lueck.

ANESA Award Search
Use this link to generate a list of awards funded by the ANESA program within the past year - ANESA Program Awards Search. When the award list is displayed, you can click on the award title to obtain an abstract-length general description of the research.

Science & Technology organizations in ANESA Region:
Science and engineering organizations in Africa, the Near East & South Asia are listed by country on the Worldwide Science Organizations section of this website.