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Tom Kariuki, PhD, Director of Programmes at The African Academy of Sciences (AAS), and Judy Omumbo, PhD, Programme Manager for Affiliates and Postdocs at AAS, share early career researcher, Margreth Tadie’s research journey, and why she was selected as the winner of a Future Leaders African Independent Research (FLAIR) fellowship.

In this blog, Kariuki and Omumbo, tell us more about FLAIR, a fellowship designed to help talented early-career researchers, whose science is focused on the needs of the continent, to establish independent careers in African institutions and ultimately, their own research groups.

The fellowship is as a result of a partnership between The African Academy of Sciences (The AAS) and the Royal Society supported through the Global Challenges Research Fund. Now, here’s Margreth Tadie’s story.

And the winner is….

Margreth Tadie is exuberant beyond words! She has just won a Future Leaders African Independent Research (FLAIR) fellowship to pursue post-doctoral training at South Africa’s Stellenbosch University.

Tadie, an engineer who grew up on a mine in Zimbabwe and witnessed first-hand the environmental impact and devastation, is focusing her FLAIR project on mining waste, exploring its unrecovered value; and collecting data on the economic, environmental and social issues of mining in Africa. 

Her FLAIR project is intrinsically linked with her personal story. Growing up on a mine means she witnessed the good, the bad and the ugly of the mining industry in her home country of Zimbabwe, an experience she is using to deliver a quality FLAIR project.

Her FLAIR project is intrinsically linked with her personal story. Growing up on a mine means she witnessed the good, the bad and the ugly of the mining industry in her home country of Zimbabwe, an experience she is using to deliver a quality FLAIR project.

Tadie is among the 30 pioneering 2019 FLAIR Fellows who were selected for their fellowship and whose research is diverse, ranging from providing renewable energy solutions and addressing climate change, to tackling food security and targeting health and environmental problems that affect Africa. Their journey began with a process that drew over 750 applications from across the continent and led to a rigorous independent peer review mechanism.

The AAS and Royal Society share the values of supporting merit-based excellence awards. This approach recognizes that brilliant ideas can come from everywhere in Africa, and brilliant individuals and their institutions will be supported to successfully implement their projects, either in their home countries or in their chosen institutions anywhere in Africa. Nonetheless, similar to other funding opportunities, this first round of FLAIR has revealed gaps in research support that exists around the continent. 

Helping talented early-career researchers

Increasingly, South Africa has become a chosen destination for young up-and-coming African researchers due to its strong research infrastructure and postdoctoral programmes. Notably, South Africa is one of the few African countries that has established strong postdoc programmes that provide the necessary support for researchers to thrive. Although FLAIR received a large number of applications based in South Africa, a large proportion of these researchers were of different African nationalities.

Unfortunately, this is not the scenario for the rest of the continent, where for the most part, research support offices do not exist, and applications are largely driven by an individual’s intellect, grit and determination to succeed, with little institutional support.

The hope is that once the fellows complete their training, their scientific skills will help build research capacity across the continent. Indeed, a few of the FLAIR fellows are returning to the continent from countries such as the UK and USA to continue their careers in African institutions. This is an important part of the programme – attracting scientists back from high-income countries where they completed their PhD and early postdoctoral training so that they can play a part in building the research infrastructure in Africa.

Additionally, quality science takes place in conducive environments where the researcher is given state-of-the-art infrastructure and administrative support to enable them to focus on their research. The AAS and Royal Society cannot emphasize enough the importance of a well-functioning research management office.

The preponderance of applications from South Africa can be linked to the strength of South African institutions and their culture of supporting postdoctoral career pathways, and the existence of well-established research support offices. Tadie received the FLAIR call through the Stellenbosch research support office, she was called for a planning meeting, underwent a mock presentation to prepare her for the FLAIR interviews, and received support with her budget preparations, all meant to provide her with a competitive edge and the best chances of success.

Establishing independent careers

She might not have had the infrastructure, mentorship and research support to successfully apply for the FLAIR fellowships had she stayed in her home country. Of the 30 FLAIR grantees who are South African (12), or Africans based in SA institutions (4), all received this same level of support.

Unfortunately, this is not the scenario for the rest of the continent, where for the most part, research support offices do not exist, and applications are largely driven by an individual’s intellect, grit and determination to succeed, with little institutional support. Through its Research Management Programme (ReMPro) Africa, The AAS aims to improve the research support infrastructure, with a particular focus in certain regions of the continent where the culture of research & innovation support is weak.

The AAS through its funding, agenda-setting and programme implementation platform, the Alliance for Accelerating Science in Africa (AESA) has over the years collected interesting data that shows a propensity of different regions of the continent to lead in certain disciplines in response to requests for applications on research funding opportunities. For example, the largest number of climate science projects supported by The AAS through the Climate Impacts Research Capacity Leadership Enhancement (CIRCLE) programme was in west Africa (led by Nigeria); East Africa lead the pack when it came to innovation projects awarded through the Grand Challenges Africa programme; and of 750 applications for FLAIR, over 250 came from South Africa; and our data indicates that North African institutions have an edge in engineering, mathematics and pure sciences. As The AAS continues to support all areas of Science Technology and Innovation, it would appear as though natural regional hubs of growth in excellence are developing as a result of regional development priorities.

The AAS aims to improve the research support infrastructure, with a particular focus in certain regions of the continent where the culture of research & innovation support is weak.

This is not unique to South Africa. Africa’s neighbor to the west, the USA, has an intra-mural post-doctoral programme at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) which has close to 3000 post-docs, of whom 600 are from China, and from India. A calculated strategy by Chinese and Indian governments. These two countries have policies that deliberately and actively support their nationals to train at the NIH, but with a strong emphasis for them to return to their home countries as emerging leaders who can help build their home institutions.

The AAS postdoctoral programme with NIH, African Post-doctoral Training Initiative (APTI) adopts a similar approach with 30 African post-docs from Ghana, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya and Nigeria to benefit over the next three years. In previous years, European and UK scientists made the bulk of post-docs in US universities. This collaborative model can also work for Africa where strong institutions in South Africa such as Stellenbosch, UCT, UKZN, Wits etc. take on more African scientists from all regions, helping to promote mutually productive intra-African research collaborations, and supporting the emergence of a post-doc culture across the continent.

As The AAS and her partners roll out future calls in the coming years, and as research support offices take root in many Higher Education Institutions (HEI) in Africa, we will continue to reward merit and excellence, reviews and learning from the research funding application process will be tracked and used to inform equity in gender, diversity and geographical representation across all regions of the continent. 

A place to publish

All FLAIR grantees are eligible to publish their research on AAS Open Research. This includes all types of research you wish to share, be it standard research articles, clinical trial findings, study protocols, data sets, negative results and more. The platform uses an approach that supports reproducibility, transparency and impact. For further details, please see our author guidelines and start submitting.