Benefits offered through the Directory


The African Scientists Directory aims to benefit individual scientists, science organisations and more – on national, regional and global levels:

Collaborate

It is only through collaboration that we will be able to accelerate finding solutions to problems faced as a continent. This includes collaboration between government and public entities. “If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.” – African proverb

Build Trust

Let’s build trust through openly sharing our expertise and research findings, as well as the underlying data sets to research conducted. “Without data, you are just another person with an opinion.” – W. Edwards Deming

Increase Impact

Indigenous knowledge is not always well-documented. Let’s support one another to find local solutions for local problems and collaborate with all to find global solutions for global problems.

Connect

The African Scientists Directory aims to promote and facilitate the formation of scientific societies and academies within the continent as well as sub-regional partnerships on the continent. Between scientists and scientists, funders and scientists, postgraduate students and scientists, citizens and scientists, and many more.  By bringing scientists together in a collective way, it guarantees that no one is left out or left behind.

Mobilise

Through having a central database of experts in science disciplines, experts can be identified and contacted within seconds. This is especially useful when it is a matter of urgency to connect scientists with funders and decision/policy makers. When time is of the essence, we need to know who are the experts who can provide support in a fast, effective and trusted way.

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Various initiatives across the globe are trying to better connect African scientists with one another. Although discipline specific lists of experts linked to membership organisations are of great value, science has increasingly become more interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary, but ultimately transdisciplinary. In the event of a crisis such as what we’ve experienced during the Covid-19 pandemic and the climate crisis the world faces, experts from different disciplines are required to address the many challenges from different angles, also to advise governments. It is important that scientists and experts be promptly identified in the case of an emergency, without any delay. Directories providing open access to the names of expert scientists play an important role and those directories become important tools when time is of the essence.

This also in line with a suggestion from the 2nd United Nations Open Science Conference, 21–23 July 2021, namely that “more needs to be done to link the producers of science to each other in the pursuit of such common goals as the SDGs.”

Selected benefits are listed below.

The African Scientists Directory …..

  • Facilitates the free flow of scientists and scientific knowledge across the borders; and promote the participation of African scientists in activities of the global scientific community;
  • Ensures efficient information transfer from the global scientific community to the scientific community in Africa; and the collection and dissemination of any valuable scientific information for Africa;
  • Promotes and facilitates the formation of scientific societies and academies within the continent as well as sub-regional partnerships on the continent;
  • Promotes and facilitates capacity building in Africa, including support for post-graduate training programmes for early-career scientists;
  • All profiles are verified and evaluated before being published, across all science disciplines, and from all African countries. ASD literally tries to be the “Who’s Who” of science on the African continent;
  • Communicates science news/activities to you, according to your area/s of work, rather than bombarding you with science news irrelevant to you and which can so easily lead to email fatigue. A targeted email approach is followed;
  • The general public can access the directory and contact scientists through the online form, getting in touch with experts who can verify information in the combat against fake news (to encourage science engagement and make scientists more visible to the man on the street);
  • Identify peer-reviewers in a specific discipline, identify external examiners, identify collaborators as part of funded projects, and many more;
  • And many more.

The ASD aligns with the ASSAf strategic goals, in that it promotes national, regional, and international linkages. Not only is this platform used as a conduit to channel important (targeted) science information, but it also creates a network of scientists who can work together towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) through collaboration and sharing.