IUCr awarded ICSU grant for 'Building Science Capacity in Africa via Crystallography' project

We are proud to announce that the IUCr has been awarded a grant for the project 'Building Science Capacity in Africa via Crystallography' under the ICSU Grants Programme 2015. The proposal was prepared as a follow-up to the IYCr Pan African Summit meeting (Bloemfontein, October 2014) and submitted by the IUCr (as an ICSU member) on behalf of Andreas Roodt, President of ECA and chair of the Summit meeting, and Michele Zema, IYCr Project Manager and IUCr representative for the proposal.

The IUCr project is supported by:

• ECA
• UNESCO
• ICSU Regional Office for Africa
• INDABA Series of meetings
• SAASTA (South African Agency for Science and Technology Advancement) Public Engagement with Nanotechnology

The project aims at further cementing the African Crystallographic Association (AfCA), whose Steering Committee was established at the Summit meeting in Bloemfontein in October 2014. The programme will be conducted as part of the IUCr Crystallography in Africa initiative.

The main actions will be:
(i) to set up a follow-up meeting to the Summit, preferentially in Northern Africa, to further work towards the formal formation of AfCA;
(ii) to arrange the First Pan African Conference on Crystallography (PCCr1), which will be held at the University of Dschang in Cameroon (Central Africa), October 6-11, 2016. This conference aims to bring together African crystallographers, mineralogists and solid-state and structural scientists to increase the awareness of crystallography and improve the educational opportunities for African researchers and students of all levels;
(iii) to bring African scientists to the INDABA series of conferences in South Africa (in the latter part of 2015) to expose them to high-level international interdisciplinary science.

Moreover, the project includes many additional actions, which will be undertaken pending the availability of funds, infrastructure and human resources.

For more information, please visit www.iycr2014.org/capacity-building/icsu2015.