Financial news

A proposal of training through research and mobility to strengthen the botanical expertise in Malesia has been submitted to the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Unfortunately, it was not possible for the MacArthur Foundation to support our proposal this time due to limited resources, although the importance of the work was recognised and our project was called very worthy and appealing. As experience has shown that direct funding of the Flora Malesiana project is very difficult to obtain, this model of training in combination with research will have to be developed further. Therefore, the same proposal has been submitted by L on behalf of the other participants (BO, K, FRIM, LAE, PNH) to the European Union for funding in the Science and Technology for Developing countries programme. The proposal comprises two post-doctoral fellowships (the European participants) and four PhD-projects (the Malesian participants) to form a working team and study a number of Euphorbiaceae tribes; the postdocs and PhD-students will act also as liaison officers for their respective home countries.¹