African hub to boost research autonomy

Nature : When it comes to funding, researchers in Africa contend with two challenges. The first is expected in a developing continent: Budgets are tight. The second is perhaps more surprising: Some African countries receive most of their research funding from sources outside the continent. As a result, they have less control about how the money is spent. Boosting the autonomy of Africa’s researchers is the goal of Alliance for Accelerating Excellence in Science in Africa (AESA), a new research hub based in Nairobi, Kenya. Seeded with $4.5 million from international agencies, AESA will help to ensure that more funding decisions are made by Africans for Africans.