During its first 20 years, the IDRC Alumni directed modest funds to different types of bursaries awarded by IDRC. The paragraphs below document the Association’s past activities.
During each of its strategic planning periods, IDRC evolved its individual grants and bursaries. In recent years, mounting costs of internships and scholarships have made the small Alumni contributions practically irrelevant. Thus, the Executive decided to abandon this line of work, which, in the final analysis, was not very helpful to IDRC. That being said, there remains a fund set up at IDRC by an alumnus that continues to support young researchers: the David and Ruth Hopper and Ramesh and Pilar Bhatia Canada Fund.
Past Alumni Association support went to:
Book grants: From 2006 to 2009, the Alumni made book grants of $100 to developing country students supported by IDRC.
Scholarships and internships: In 2007, the Alumni Executive aligned Alumni Association support with IDRC’s current programs. Each year, the annual gathering of Alumni honoured one of IDRC’s regional offices and offered a contribution of at least $1,000 to IDRC-supported interns or young researcher in the region. In 2015, the Alumni recast this award as the Rachel DesRosiers Alumni Award to memorialize and honour a respected colleague and generous supporter of the Alumni grant initiative from its inception. See Rachel DesRosiers Alumni Award for the details of Rachel’s career and engagement with the Alumni. Also see a detailed summary of the amounts awarded (pdf).
In 2017, IDRC alumni Pilar and Ramesh Bhatia marked their admiration for and friendship with David and Ruth Hopper with a generous donation to IDRC directed towards scholarships for young researchers in India, the Philippines, and Canada. The interest IDRC earns on the David and Ruth Hopper and Ramesh and Pilar Canada Fund serves to cover part of the grant IDRC gives annually to the IDRC Alumni Association.