Background information on APTI
Over the years, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), and other funders, working in partnership with African institutions such as the African Academy of Sciences (AAS), and various universities and research centres in Africa, have made substantial investments to strengthen research capacity in sub-Saharan Africa. These investments advance the search for new interventions, treatments, and cures and improve health, which is a key development indicator. A core principle is to engage African scientists as partners and independent contributors in the research enterprise. In 2018, the AAS secured a generous investment from the BMGF to support public health-related research capacity for African researchers affiliated to African institutions. As part of that process, three core partners (AAS, NIH, and BMGF created the African Post-Doctoral Fellowship Initiative (APTI) scheme. Additionally, the African Research Excellence Fund (AREF) provides research leadership capacity strengthening support for the Fellows.

The APTI programme focuses strongly on entrenching post-doctoral fellowships in African home institutions (universities and research centres) and involves two phases: a two-year fellowship at the NIH and two-year research implementation at the home institutions. The programme targets training 30 African fellows between 2018 and 2024 with the goal of turning the selected fellows into scientific leaders who can advocate for increased research and innovation projects in Africa. The APTI program has been implemented since 2018 with 30 postdoctoral fellows (distributed in three cohorts of 10 each) currently active. 
To kick off the second phase of APTI 2 fellowships, the AAS is organising an Inception Meeting for APTI 2 stakeholders in the Gambia. The main objective of the meeting is to showcase the work to be implemented by APTI 2 fellows as well as deliberate on the next steps of the programme. Specifically, the meeting seeks to

1. Provide visibility to the work being done by APTI 2 fellows,
2. Enhance the home institution's capacity to support the APTI fellows,
3. Set expectations for the fellowship

VIRTUAL MEETING DETAILS

Join the induction meeting virtually and listen to the engaging presentations from APTI 2 fellows.

Date: 31 January 2024

Time: 15:00-18:00 (GMT)

Location: Online Zoom

Register: Click here to register for the meeting.

View more information on the attached document here!