Mohamed H.A. Hassan, AAS President, TWAS Executive Director, SIG Board Member Building STI Capacity in African Middle-Income Countries Lessons from RISE and other initiatives

2 Mohamed H.A. Hassan, AAS President, TWAS Executive Director, SIG Board Member Building STI Capacity in African Middle-Income Countries Problems and challenges STI capacity-building needs of African Middle-Income Countries (MICs) African Regional Initiative in Science and Education (RISE) Other initiatives Conclusions

3 Mohamed H.A. Hassan, AAS President, TWAS Executive Director, SIG Board Member Problems and challenges Production of frontier knowledge Source: TWAS, January 2007 African contributions to world output of scientific publications Average

4 Mohamed H.A. Hassan, AAS President, TWAS Executive Director, SIG Board Member Production of frontier knowledge South-South Disparities Source: TWAS, January 2007 Top 12 of the South: World publication shares Average

5 Mohamed H.A. Hassan, AAS President, TWAS Executive Director, SIG Board Member Production of frontier knowledge Disparities within Africa African countries contributing ≥ 0.02% of world share of ISI- listed S&E papers Average Source: TWAS, January 2007 MICs

6 Mohamed H.A. Hassan, AAS President, TWAS Executive Director, SIG Board Member Technological innovation potential

7 Mohamed H.A. Hassan, AAS President, TWAS Executive Director, SIG Board Member Capacity Building Needs Need to reform and strengthen research universities in African MICs Only 3 African universities (all in South Africa) are listed among top 500 universities in the world Each country must have at least one world-class university to set national standards for quality education and research to attract and train talent to reduce brain drain

8 Mohamed H.A. Hassan, AAS President, TWAS Executive Director, SIG Board Member Capacity Building Needs Need to build research capacity and centres of excellence within universities to train and retain new generation of professors and problem-solving research scientists to link universities to production sectors

9 Mohamed H.A. Hassan, AAS President, TWAS Executive Director, SIG Board Member Capacity Building Needs Need to establish and support national science foundations to provide merit-based competitive grants to best STI problem-solving projects Example:NRF of South Africa

10 Mohamed H.A. Hassan, AAS President, TWAS Executive Director, SIG Board Member Capacity Building Needs Need to establish (within or adjacent to research universities) “Technology Innovation Centres” to develop innovative, efficient, simple and affordable technologies for basic human needs Safe drinking water, renewable energies

11 Mohamed H.A. Hassan, AAS President, TWAS Executive Director, SIG Board Member Capacity Building Needs Need to establish and strengthen merit- based organizations (e.g. science academies) to provide independent, evidence-based and authoritative advice on policy matters and on critical science-based development issues

12 Mohamed H.A. Hassan, AAS President, TWAS Executive Director, SIG Board Member RISE Joint venture between Science Initiative Group (SIG) and Carnegie Corporation Aim: Training a new generation of PhD- level scientists and engineers in Africa through university-based research and training networks in selected areas

13 Mohamed H.A. Hassan, AAS President, TWAS Executive Director, SIG Board Member RISE Three competitively selected reresearch and training networks, each comprising universities in at least three different African countries

14 Mohamed H.A. Hassan, AAS President, TWAS Executive Director, SIG Board Member RISE Priority areas: Material science Chemistry ICTs, instrumentation and software engineering Renewable energies Water resources

15 Mohamed H.A. Hassan, AAS President, TWAS Executive Director, SIG Board Member RISE Each network will receive US$800,000 over 2 1 / 2 years; follow-up funding likely Selection procedure of three networks will be completed in July 2008

16 Mohamed H.A. Hassan, AAS President, TWAS Executive Director, SIG Board Member Other initiatives Supporting ‘networks of excellence’ in thematic areas critical to sustainable well- being in Africa NEPAD Biosciences Network (funded by Canada) NEPAD Water Network (funded by France)

17 Mohamed H.A. Hassan, AAS President, TWAS Executive Director, SIG Board Member Other initiatives Providing postgraduate fellowships to students in African MICs to study in other countries in Africa (AAU, AU) in Brazil, China, India and Mexico (TWAS) in Northern countries (sandwich-type courses)

18 Mohamed H.A. Hassan, AAS President, TWAS Executive Director, SIG Board Member Other initiatives Providing competitive and merit-based grants to young scientists and research groups Applied sciences (IFS) Basic sciences (TWAS) Both supported by Sida/SAREC, Sweden

19 Mohamed H.A. Hassan, AAS President, TWAS Executive Director, SIG Board Member Other initiatives Supporting visits of internationally renowned scientists to institutions in African MICs UNESCO-ICSU-TWAS-UNU joint programme Global Science Corps programme initiated by SIG

20 Mohamed H.A. Hassan, AAS President, TWAS Executive Director, SIG Board Member Countries with merit-based science academies

21 Mohamed H.A. Hassan, AAS President, TWAS Executive Director, SIG Board Member Green: Existing academies CameroonSenegal EgyptSudan GhanaSouth Africa KenyaTanzania MadagascarUganda MoroccoZambia MozambiqueZimbabwe Nigeria AAS (regional academy) Red: Being founded BotswanaRwanda MauritiusTunisia African merit-based science academies

22 Mohamed H.A. Hassan, AAS President, TWAS Executive Director, SIG Board Member NASAC’s statements Joint statement by academies of G8 countries and NASAC to G8 summit in Scotland in June 2005 NASAC statement to AU summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in January 2007 NASAC statement to G8 summit in Germany in June 2007 Forthcoming: NASAC statement to G8 summit in Japan in June 2008

23 Mohamed H.A. Hassan, AAS President, TWAS Executive Director, SIG Board Member NASAC’s presence at G8 Summits

24 Mohamed H.A. Hassan, AAS President, TWAS Executive Director, SIG Board Member Conclusions RISE is a promising model for building STI capacity within universities in Africa RISE should be expanded to support more networks in African MICs

25 Mohamed H.A. Hassan, AAS President, TWAS Executive Director, SIG Board Member Conclusions More coordination between various STI strategies and programmes supporting capacity-building in African MICs is needed to reduce duplications to enhance collaboration and synergies

26 Mohamed H.A. Hassan, AAS President, TWAS Executive Director, SIG Board Member Conclusions Multilateral development banks (MDBs) should support and encourage African MICs to invest in implementation of STI-capacity- building plans responding to the needs outlined before

Mohamed H.A. Hassan, AAS President, TWAS Executive Director, SIG Board Member Thank you