Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: The development of a strong capacity for scientific research and innovation in Africa is a key priority for the African continent and indeed for the world.Its importance was recognized over 30 years ago by the Royal Society, and in 2012, following a successful previous programme largely based on research student training and funded by the Leverhulme Trust, the Society was granted funding by the UK Department for International Development to develop a capacity-strengthening programme to be based in Sub-Saharan Africa.The programme-the Africa Capacity Building Initiative (ACBI)was based on consortia involving scientists and engineers from UK universities and counterparts in African universities and research institutes who worked to build research capacity in key areas, including sustainable energy, water and sanitation and soil-related research.It aimed to build sustainable partnerships, to strengthen the research training capacity in Sub-Saharan African universities and to train a cohort of talented early career researchers by a PhD scholarship programme.Each project received funding towards PhD studentships, research expenses, travel and subsistence costs, training and limited funds for equipment.The initial phase of funding allowed consortia to meet and develop their plans for the main tranche of funding, starting in 2014.Many high-quality applications were received of which 10 were selected for funding by a panel chaired by one of us (J.P.).Panel members, together with Royal Society staff monitored progress, which was helped by the plenary meetings of the whole programme (see figure 1).Additional support and advice were provided by the Centre for Capacity Research at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.Seven of the articles in the issue are based on ACBI consortia.They illustrate the range of science and engineering encompassed by the programme and describe the successes in institutional capacity strengthening and student development and training.They also show how the aim of establishing sustainable partnerships was in many cases achieved and that high-quality scientific outputs were produced.The first four articles focus on the theme of sustainable energy, with the first by Ungerer et al. [1] summarizing the achievements of the 'Chem4Energy' programme, which brought together teams in Cardiff University, UK, with those in four African universities: Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Ghana, the University of Namibia, the University of Botswana and Botswana International University of Science and Technology (BIUST); the wide-ranging programme exploited the synergy between experiment and computational modelling to explore new materials for sustainable energy technologies.The consortium remains active and holds an annual conference.The article of Langmi et al. [2] reviews the achievements of the consortium comprising the
Source: Interface Focus
Authors: C. Richard A. Catlow, John Pickett
Institutions: University College London, Cardiff University
Language: English
Subfield: Information Systems and Management
Field: Decision Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4401466737