Guillaume
I obtained a 242 grant from the Hubert Tuor Foundation to cover expenses for publishing a scientific article open-access. After completing my master in biology, I did some civil service at a nature protection NGO. They had gathered an impressive amount of data but were lacking the time, skills and an impulse to analyse them properly and publish them. Fresh out of academia, I saw this as a great opportunity for collaboration and I did exactly that: I analysed the data and I published a scientific article. This was not only an excellent exercise for me, but it was also a great way to value the decades of work that were necessary to collect the data. The results have direct application for the management of wetlands and the conservation of the biodiversity that lives there. Because the results were of primary interest to nature conservation NGOs that cannot afford to subscribe to scientific journals, I wanted to publish open-access. The HTF kindly covered the fees for open access publishing, ultimately helping me to help my readers make educated management decisions.
Beyond the simple effect of this publication, this 242 grant allowed me to make a first step towards something that I am committed to: bridging academia and the real world. This first success is encouraging me to pursue in this direction and to use the skills developed while doing fundamental research for more concrete applications. In summary, the help provided by the HFT goes way beyond the one-time effect of the article I published, and I look forward to give back what I received in the form of mentoring, promoting the philanthropic values of the foundation, and more.