SISB4 - Shaping an Eco-system of emerging and emergent African Scholars

Outline

In this session I will share with the other participants my quest to shape an eco-system of emerging and emergent African scholars -in Africa and diaspora. I will share the history of this endeavor from a student led conference hosted at SHU early in the year to subsequent activities which have seen the birth of local chapters of postgraduate networks in some of the African countries. I will seek participant’s contribution in shaping this into a full vibrant entity -which can play a key role not only in contributing to the gaps in developing African researchers but also actively contributing to the African research agenda. A key reference will be a related paper and discussions that I will be presenting at upcoming ACU conference for university leaders which will be hosted in Accra Ghana at the end of July. I will be keen to share some of my emerging ideas on exploiting opportunities presented by expansion of adoption of mobile/technology in linking the emerging students in Africa and those in diaspora and possibility of collaboration with international researchers in mentoring and coaching the emerging African researchers. Thoughts around communication of research on Africa and those done by African researchers across the world will also be shared with a special reference to a proposed citizen friendly research journal- 'The Mwananchi Research Journal'.

Themes

• Researcher development across boundaries including international collaborations, inter-cultural competences, international researchers, experiences, business/industry collaborations and engaging society through open research.