The formidable challenge of science in the Majority World, 2.

There is an interesting article in the latest issue of Nature Chemistry, Challenges and opportunities for chemistry in Africa, by Berhanu Abegaz, the Executive Director of the African Academy of Sciences.

He begins by discussing how metrics don't really give an accurate picture of what is going on, before discussing how natural products chemistry is a significant area of interest. But then he moves to the formidable challenges of science and education in such an under-resourced continent....

It was encouraging to me personally that Abegaz spends several paragraphs summarising a paper I co-authored three years ago with Ross van Vuuren and Malcolm Buchanan. He has far greater expertise and experience than us and so it was nice to see that our modest contribution was valuable.

As an aside, this brought home to me again the issue of the important distinction between token and substantial citations. Most citations I receive are token and so it is really encouraging to have a substantial one occasionally.

Previously I posted about some worthwhile initiatives on physics in Africa. It is encouraging that the International Centre for Theoretical Physics is starting a new initiative in Rwanda.