CLIFF-GRADS Round 7 Closed: What PhD Students Can Prepare for Next

Round 7 is closed, and the fellows have already been named

If you arrived here looking for an open CLIFF-GRADS application form, stop and read this first, because the situation has changed twice since the last round opened.

The Climate, Food and Farming, Global Research Alliance Development Scholarships (CLIFF-GRADS) Round 7 call opened on 28 November 2025 with a closing date of 11 January 2026. On 8 January 2026 the Global Research Alliance posted an update extending the deadline to 13 January 2026 at 11:59 p.m. GMT. That extended deadline has passed. The official GRA pages now show the completed call and the awardee announcement rather than an open Round 7 application window.

On 7 July 2026, at the GRA Council Meeting in Costa Rica, the Alliance announced the Round 7 recipients: 40 fellows from 21 countries across Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean, who will undertake placements at 33 host institutions worldwide during 2026 and 2027.

A Round 8 call has not been announced. The official CLIFF-GRADS page lists the Round 7 awardees and the earlier calls, but it does not publish an opening date, deadline, or application form for a next round. Anyone quoting you a Round 8 deadline is guessing. The programme is still active: the GRA has published Round 7 placements for 2026 and 2027, but it has not said when students may apply again.

The rest of this page is written for the people that answer actually helps: PhD students who want to be genuinely ready the day Round 8 opens, rather than scrambling in the final week.

What CLIFF-GRADS is, in plain terms

CLIFF-GRADS is a joint initiative of the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases (GRA), the Global Methane Hub (GMH), and the CGIAR Climate Action Science Program. Round 7 was funded by the New Zealand Government through its Ministry for Primary Industries, together with the Global Methane Hub, with fellowship contracts administered by Randstad Ltd in New Zealand.

The premise is narrow and practical. Plenty of PhD students in low- and middle-income countries are working on the right problems — methane from rice paddies, nitrous oxide from fertilised soils, soil carbon under different management, emissions from livestock systems — but do not have access to the flux chambers, gas chromatographs, isotope facilities, model calibration expertise, or processing pipelines that would let them answer their questions properly. CLIFF-GRADS moves the student to the equipment for a few months rather than trying to move the equipment to the student.

Practically, that means a short research stay of four to six months at a host institute, where you work on a specific advertised project alongside GRA, CGIAR, GMH, or partner scientists. The GRA describes the techniques on offer as including remote sensing, data surveys, and direct measurement of greenhouse gas emissions. Topics sit within the measurement, modelling, and mitigation of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, or carbon storage in agricultural systems, with an explicit interest in food security context.

Round 7 grants were USD 14,000 per fellow, with the research stay required to begin before the end of 2026. That amount belongs to Round 7; the GRA has not announced funding for a future round.

Since 2017, the GRA reports that over 200 students from 40 developing countries have received CLIFF-GRADS awards.

Round 7 at a glance (closed)

What the Round 7 fellows are actually doing

The published Round 7 list is the single most useful document for a future applicant, because it shows exactly what kinds of proposals get funded. A few of the placements:

• A Colombian fellow at INTA Balcarce in Argentina, assessing the role of rainfed pecan orchards in mitigating soil nitrous oxide and methane emissions.
• A Haitian fellow at the Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research, on biochar-based strategies for carbon sequestration.
• An Ethiopian fellow at Rothamsted Research in the United Kingdom, studying the effect of green ammonia on greenhouse gas emissions and soil nutrients.
• A Mexican fellow at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines, using sequencing to identify methane-reducing microbes in paddy fields.
• A Nigerian fellow at INTA EEA Rafaela in Argentina, improving the measurement of manure methane potential.
• A Mozambican fellow at the International Livestock Research Institute in Kenya, on digital MRV for emission reductions from manure biodigesters.

Notice the pattern. Every one of these is a specific measurement or modelling problem, in a named system, at an institute that already runs that method. None of them is “research on climate change and agriculture.” The Alliance summarises the Round 7 themes as enteric methane, rice systems, soil emissions, and blue carbon ecosystems — that is the territory to position yourself in.

Who has qualified, round after round

The Round 7 eligibility criteria were short and specific. To apply, you had to be:

• A citizen of a developing country, and
• Undertaking your PhD at a university in a developing country, and
• Someone who has not previously been awarded a CLIFF-GRADS grant.

The call also said preference would be given to students applying for opportunities outside their home country or country of study, to support international networks. That preference was not a substitute for the three basic requirements. An unsuccessful past application was not listed as a bar: the restriction applied to people who had previously received a CLIFF-GRADS grant. If a future call uses different wording, follow that call rather than assuming Round 7’s rules carry forward.

Applications had to be submitted in English only. The official call stated that applications in any other language would not be accepted.

What Round 7 asked you to submit

Round 7 required applicants to complete the online application form and upload a single merged PDF containing three items:

1. A one-page motivation letter.
2. A one-page academic CV, including your contact details.
3. A letter of support from your PhD supervisor at your current university.

The motivation letter had to include the applicant’s name, nationality, PhD country, graduate-research objectives, up to three preferred research opportunities in order, relevant qualifications, and an explanation of how the placement would improve the PhD and career. The call did not list a separate full research proposal among the required documents, so a future applicant should make the fit with an advertised host project clear in this short letter.

If you want a head start on Round 8, build these three documents now against the Round 7 template and keep them current. When the next call appears, you will be editing rather than writing.

How to prepare while there is no open call

Read the Round 7 call document and the awardee list. Both are linked from the GRA’s CLIFF-GRADS library page. The awardee list shows the range of host institutions and project types: INTA in Argentina, NIBIO in Norway, IRRI, ILRI, Rothamsted, IFPRI, and research institutes in Spain all appear in the published material. It also shows that a strong match is concrete: a named agricultural system, a defined emissions or carbon question, and a host with the relevant method.

Sharpen a one-sentence description of your work. Reviewers should be able to place you immediately. “I study nitrous oxide emissions from irrigated maize in northern Nigeria, focusing on how fertiliser timing shifts emission peaks” tells them everything. “My research is on climate-smart agriculture” tells them nothing.

Name the method you are missing. The programme’s whole logic is access to expertise and equipment you cannot get at home. Be able to say which one: static chamber measurement, gas chromatography, eddy covariance processing, DNDC or DayCent calibration, stable isotope work, remote sensing pipelines.

Talk to your supervisor early, and not about a letter. Talk about whether they can spare you for four to six months, and when in your programme that would do the least damage and the most good. The letter of support is the easy part once that conversation has happened. A supervisor who has already agreed to the absence writes a very different letter from one who has just been handed a deadline.

Watch the right page. New rounds are announced on the GRA’s CLIFF-GRADS library page and in the Alliance’s news feed, and you can subscribe to GRA updates from the same site. The official news item is also where the 13 January extension was recorded, so it is safer to check the source than to rely on an aggregator carrying the original 11 January date.

Timing expectations for Round 8

The cadence has not been regular, and it would be dishonest to promise you one. The official fellowship page lists the Round 6 student call as 2023 and its awardees as 2023-2024. The Round 7 call appeared in November 2025, with awardees announced in July 2026 and placements running through 2026 and 2027. That gap suggests that calls follow funding and host-project availability rather than a fixed academic calendar.

What the Round 7 timeline does tell you is the internal rhythm once a call opens: roughly six weeks from announcement to deadline, then close to six months from deadline to the awardee announcement. Six weeks is not long to assemble a supervisor letter across a holiday period, which is the strongest argument for having your documents drafted in advance.

Frequently asked questions

Is CLIFF-GRADS discontinued? No. Round 7 selected 40 fellows whose placements run into 2027. The GRA describes CLIFF-GRADS as a joint initiative of the GRA, the Global Methane Hub, and the CGIAR Climate Action Science Program, but it has not announced a Round 8 call or its funding.

Can I still submit a late Round 7 application? No. The application window closed on 13 January 2026, and the awardees have been announced. The official page does not present a current late-submission route.

Will Round 8 also be USD 14,000? Unknown. USD 14,000 was the Round 7 figure. Amounts are set per round in line with the funding behind it, so treat it as a reasonable expectation rather than a commitment.

I was rejected in Round 7. Can I apply to Round 8? Round 7 excluded previous awardees, not people who had merely applied. Whether that remains true must be confirmed in the next official call, because Round 8 has not been announced.

Can I pick my own host institution? Not freely. Placements are matched against advertised host projects, and the fit between your interests and the host’s project drives selection. The Round 7 awardee list shows how tightly students were matched to specific project topics.

Where should I check for the Round 8 call? The GRA’s CLIFF-GRADS library page, which carries every round’s student call and awardee announcement: https://globalresearchalliance.org/library/cliff_grads-fellowship/

Next step

There is no Round 8 application to submit at present. There is a great deal to prepare.

Read the Round 7 call and the list of 40 funded projects, find the two or three host institutions whose work genuinely overlaps with your thesis, draft the one-page motivation letter that connects them, and have the conversation with your supervisor about a four to six month absence.

Programme details, past student calls, and every round’s awardee list are published here: CLIFF-GRADS Fellowship — Global Research Alliance