NORTH-SOUTH CENTRE - ETH - North-South Centre North-South ...

Capacity development
Individual capacity development supported by the North-South Centre has lasting
effects at the institutional level – in particular if the collaboration is continuous,
combining various instruments. Strengthening the institutional capacities in the South
and opening up opportunities for scientists to remain in their home institutions
contributes to reducing the “brain-drain” from South to North.
Capacity development activities at the North-South Centre
take place mainly at the individual level, supporting scientists
from developing countries and emerging economies as
well as researchers from the ETH Zurich dealing with development-related
topics. A variety of instruments such as
grants for visiting scientists or teaching stays, scholarships
and our annual colloquium respond to the interests of doctoral
students, post-docs and senior scientists.
By strategically targeting the available instruments for individual
capacity development, we can have a leverage effect
at the institutional level. For example, training a doctoral
candidate from a partner institution and later on supporting
his post-doc career as staff of the home institution will
strengthen the academic profile of this partner institution.
This has been practiced, for example, with the Centre
Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques (CSRS) in Côte d’Ivoire,
as the case of Lucien Diby illustrates: In 2001, the young
scientist from Côte d’Ivoire obtained a scholarship from
the Research Fellowship Partnership Programme (RFPP),
which allowed him to realise a doctoral research project on
the growth of yam in collaboration between the CSRS and
the ETH Zurich. While he carried out the fieldwork in Côte
d’Ivoire, he stayed several times at the Institute of Plant
Science at the ETH Zurich in order to conduct specialised
laboratory analyses and to acquire additional experimental
skills. He successfully obtained his doctoral degree from
the University of Cocody in 2005 and was assigned as programme
manager at the CSRS and as lecturer at the École
Supérieure d’Agronomie (ESA) in Yamoussoukro. In 2008,
Lucien Diby returned to the ETH Zurich to continue his research
and to organise (together with Emmanuel Frossard)
a conference on yam physiology for international experts
in Zurich. This visit was made possible by a North-South
Centre grant for visiting scientists from developing countries.
Today, the long-term institutional collaboration with
the CSRS is continuing with a follow-up project involving
another RFPP fellow from Côte d’Ivoire, Valéry Kouamé Hgaza.
Thus, various individual capacity development instruments
applied in settings of continuous collaboration with research
institutions in developing countries will strengthen these institutions.
The career of Lucien Diby is typical for a former
RFPP fellow, as the statistics show: Since 1996, 30 doctoral
candidates and post-docs concluded their research projects
funded through RFPP fellowships. Of the 13 fellows from
the South, 70% currently work for a research institution in a
developing country or for an international research centre.
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Capacity development