Capacity-building is a cross-cutting task, involving all the Institute’s scientific activities, based on the belief that development entails independent scientific communities, open to social challenges. IRD contributes by emphasising the strengthening of education designed to improve transmission of knowledge in key domains of sustainable development, in order to make future researchers more useful in society, and improve their capacity to innovate.
Launched in 2015, the Masters support programme in West and Central Africa supports IRD teams in their cooperation with universities and research centres in the Global South, to set up or strengthen initial training courses. The aim is to increase training offers which lead to degrees, are strongly supported by research and connected to the socio-professional sector, to boost relevance and appropriateness between training, employment and development. Several already operational initiatives illustrate the central role that IRD can play in this dynamic: one on water resources and the environmental risks in major cities in West Africa (Erasmus+ MAREMA); the other on the theme of coastal and marine environments in Central Africa (Masters in the management of coastal and marine environments, AUF-IRD-SCAC Cameroon-Gabon national parks agency partnership). A project is also being developed to provide training in agro-ecology. This strategy helps to increase IRD’s presence in funding programmes to support cooperation in higher education and more generally among development backers.
In 2017, to strengthen connections between political and economic development players and researchers, IRD supported a training school regarding the concrete implementation of the Nagoya Protocol and a training school in free geomatics adapted to West African issues, and prepared a spring school on combating urban violence.
Three workshops were held in 2017 in Bondy, Quito (Ecuador) and Luang Prabang (Laos). The aim was to provide opportunities to meet and exchange for researchers who were “culturally close”, with differing experience and working on various themes, so that they could learn from each other. This allowed the participants to develop additional skills in communication, photography, writing scientific articles, bibliographic research, team management, etc.
Moreover, these initiatives are a chance to build connections with partner researchers, to promote their profiles and work, and to involve them in different activities organised by IRD or in response to calls for tender from international organisations (World Bank, various organisations connected to the UN).
Institutional cooperation with doctoral schools is underdeveloped, except for funding of theses (Mérieux co-funding, PDI programme and doctoral schools in Peru). In addition to its role in supporting students in the South, IRD supports partner universities for the creation or consolidation of doctoral schools, in connection with partner research arrangements (IJLs, observatories). In this respect, it helps to improve doctoral training, by contributing to skills that are not directly within the scope of the research activities.
IRD therefore worked with other partners to set up a doctoral school of agro-ecology in West Africa, and to train a cohort of doctoral students in the South, with Labex Parafrap support in parasitology.
In 2017, the activities of the second phase of the AMRUGE-CI project began. Conducted by Ivorian teams in partnerships with teams from Africa and France, this project allows the development of new knowledge concerning the environment, agriculture, natural substances, the climate or public policies, the training of young doctoral students, and support for innovative companies.
In 2017, 30 research projects were also selected to receive support under the SEP2D programme on plant biology.
