In her opening address, Sabine Döring, State Secretary at the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung - BMBF), emphasised the importance of international research cooperation, particularly with Africa. The following day was dedicated to science and the collaborations with partners at German universities funded by the "German Academic Exchange Service (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst - DAAD).
AIMS South Africa was the first centre to be established by the South African, Neil Turok, a professor at Cambridge at the time and was supposed to provide a blueprint for setting up centres in Senegal, Ghana, Cameroon and Rwanda. AIMS is a pan-African initiative which originally focused on training Master’s students. Their number has also multiplied since then.
Research entered the portfolio somewhat later. Financed by the BMBF and established by the Humboldt Foundation, the Research Chairs for mathematics and its applications played a major role in establishing research activities at AIMS. The first holder of a research chair was the Senegalese Moustapha Fall who was appointed to the newly-founded AIMS Senegal in 2013. Since then, nine further chairs have been established at various centres. The tenth chair-holder will assume his position at AIMS South Africa in the coming year.
Further Reading
- Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation (03.04.2024): Ten years of German Research Chairs for Mathematics in Africa
