Business Day: US Funds for African Science

African scientific and engineering research is to receive a $2.4 million boost over the next two and a half years in the form of a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York. The grant is meant to improve teaching in African universities and increase the number of doctorates in science. South Africa and Africa as a whole lag behind the developed world in terms of number of people graduating with doctorates, but South Africa is ahead of China and India on this ratio, the vice president of the National Research Foundation's Research and innovation Support Agency, Dr. Albert van Jaarsveld, said. South Africa's production of an average 27 doctorates per million citizens and about 1200 doctorates a year is in contrast to Europe's 100-200 people with doctorates per million. Article here.

July 2008