AAS-AESA announces US$2 million investment to boost Africa’s scientific capacity

The African Academy of Sciences and the NEPAD Agency’s Alliance for Accelerating Excellence in Science in Africa (AESA) and its partners today announced a US$2 million programme, which will train postdoctoral researchers to support globally competitive research in African universities and contribute to the creation of knowledge-based economies on the continent.

The investment, enabled by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York, will build on the foundation of the Science Initiative Group (SIG)’s Regional Initiative in Science and Education (RISE), which has for a decade prepared PhD- and masters-level scientists and engineers in sub-Saharan Africa through competitively selected, university-based research and teaching networks.  The new AESA-RISE Postdoctoral Fellowship Programme responds to an urgent need to increase the number of researchers in Africa.

Africa has only 169 researchers per million inhabitants, compared to 428 in Chile and 4,107 in the UK, resulting in it contributing only 2.6% of global scientific output. Africa’s few high-quality postdoctoral training programmes are insufficient to meet the demand; compounding the problem, there is limited funding for postdoctoral training, and the faculty who would otherwise conduct postdoctoral training and research are unavailable due to heavy teaching loads driven by high student enrolment rates in African universities. A postdoctoral fellowship is a necessary part of the training that enables a scientist to develop into a fully successful research and academic leader and a critical addition to the educational ecosystem.

The new AESA-RISE Postdoctoral Fellowship Programme, is being implemented in partnership with seven African, US and European higher education institutions, to:

• Increase the number of postdoctoral researchers in Africa and build a critical mass of world class researchers by providing funding for training and research that will help to retain them on the continent so they can make an essential contribution to the development of knowledge-based economies.
• Provide a quality and structured postdoctoral training programme to nurture the next generation of researchers to independently lead research and innovation programmes and to emerge as future mentors and supervisors.
• Provide access to quality research facilities and mentors from Africa and abroad through its partnerships with the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences, the Cambridge-Africa Programme at the University of Cambridge, the Africa Oxford Initiative, the African Research Universities Alliance, the International Science Programme at Uppsala University in Sweden, the University of Basel in Switzerland in the framework of the Swiss – African Research Cooperation (SARECO) and the US-based Science Initiative Group, which implemented RISE.
• Promote the production, reproduction and transition of knowledge from research laboratories to lecture halls as well as to the halls of government, in order to create an enduring infrastructure for globally competitive African universities that attract international students and researchers. The ultimate goal is to produce policies, products and practices that impact lives and livelihoods on the continent.