Fund for Armenian Relief
PRESS RELEASE
Fund for Armenian Relief (FAR)
Press Office
630 Second Avenue, New York, NY 10016
Tel: (212) 889-5150; Fax: (212) 889-4849
email: press@farusa.org
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Armenian Scientists Supported by FAR Project
HELPING ARMENIAN RESEARCHERS KEY TO DEVELOPING NATION
On February 5, 2009, 25 teams of Armenian scientists gathered in the
Yerevan office of the Fund for Armenian Relief (FAR) to receive
funding that will allow them to carry on their cutting-edge research
projects.
This is the ninth year that FAR’s Armenian National Science and
Education Fund (ANSEF) has provided aid to Armenia’s best and
brightest minds, and it awarded 25 grants.
This year, as in previous years, most of the grants are going to
teams of scientists engaged in physics research, with 12 grants.
Additional grants are funding four research teams in biology, two
teams each in chemistry and astronomy, and additional teams with
projects in mechanics, radio physics, zoology, ecology, and art.
Since its founding nine years ago in an effort to stop the brain drain
affecting the newly independent Republic of Armenia, 208 teams of
researchers (made up of 900 individual scientists and academics) have
received support from ANSEF. The financial aid has toped $1 million
over the years.
This year’s ANSEF grants were underwritten by a generous $100,000
donation from Armen Avanessians, a trained engineer who since 1994 has
been a partner at Goldman Sachs. This year’s donation, the first half
of a $200,000 pledge made by Mr. Avanessians to support ANSEF, allowed
the program to fully-fund 25 worthy projects.
Founded by a group of Armenian-American academics and scientists, led
by astrophysicist Dr. Yervant Terzian, ANSEF provides grants of up to
$5,000 to research teams chosen in a highly competitive, blind,
peer-reviewed process. This simple requirement fundamentally changed
the way the Armenian researchers sought funding, scrapping the
communist-era focus on connections and stressing competence and
relevancy.
The research teams include not just senior researchers but also young
scientists who are the next generation of Armenian thinkers. The
ANSEF grants forward their research but also keep the participants
from leaving Armenia in search of funding, allowing them to offer
guidence and direction to those younger researchers.
Each year, due to funding limitations, FAR is only able to provide
grants to a few dozen of the hundreds of project proposals. That is
why the support of Mr. Avanessians is so vital to the project.
"ANSEF is really a project of passion and devotion," said Dr. Yervant
Terzian. "All of ANSEF’s supporters – those supporting the project and
those working on the project to ensure the awards go to the most
worthy researchers – are involved because they are passionate about
science and research. Everybody is convinced that the creative
intellectual capital of Armenia is the nation’s most valuable
resource."
Further information on ANSEF, including a complete list of this year’s
recipients can be found on the ANSEF website:
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About FAR
Since its founding in response to the 1988 earthquake, FAR has served
hundreds of thousands of people through more than 220 relief and
development programs in Armenia and Karabagh. It has channeled more
than $265 million in humanitarian assistance by implementing a wide
range of projects including emergency relief, construction, education,
medical aid, and economic development.
For more information on FAR or to send donations, contact us at 630
Second Avenue, New York, NY 10016; telephone (212) 889-5150; fax (212)
889-4849; ; e-mail press@farusa.org.