Advanced Physics tRainIng and Collaboration with Africa
APhRICA is a new initiative, born from an international network of representatives from the world of research and academia, who spontaneously took action to build a bridge between young African scholars in the field of science, in particular the physics of matter, with Europe and some of its excellent institutions.
The mission is to train and enhance the skills of a generation of young scientists from African nations, in the fields of theoretical and applied research in physics and materials science.
The medium and long-term ambition is to enable them to contribute to the development of the African continent, which increasingly represents a strategic player in global progress, by applying and spending the high level of knowledge acquired.
The number of internationally excellent scientists who have already joined the initiative is growing, forming a network to support its actions. At the moment the funds come from projects already active, but the aim is to attract as many ad hoc investments as possible.
APhRICA gives continuity to the African Regional School series on Electronic Structure Methods and Applications, supported by the ICTP. Particular reference is made to ASESMA, RASESMA and CASESMA (African / Regional African / Central African School on Electronic Structure Methods and Applications).
Moreover, the initiative connects and develops the recent cooperation agreement between CNR and the ICTP-EAIFR, called “Advanced Physics in Rwanda Ism-cnr Cooperation Agreement“.
The schools have had the merit of attracting numerous students from all over Africa over the years and of bringing new resources and skills to the fields of advanced training. The creation of an international network of scientists from CNR, CNRS, CECAM, EPFL to support the initiatives, which has strengthened recently (with the active participation of academic institutions and research centers from Rwanda and Kenya), has however been balanced by the limitation of the episodic and temporary nature of the initiatives. This limit did not allow the results and efforts made to be consolidated.
In particular, it has been observed from parallel efforts that the current status leaves local scientists unable to push the fundamental science behind breakthroughs in condensed matter physics, but rather only contribute to limited gaps in applications to materials, restricted by available resources for computational modeling.
Starting from students, who will occupy faculty positions in the time period of a decade, to early career scientists who can pave the way for long term retention of this advanced knowledge, a deliberate training effort is required to achieve the goal of driving the economic growth through science and gathering the results of previous but isolated training and dissemination experiences and investiments.
The Manifesto summerizes the reasons, the objectives and the methodology of the initiative: