Context and Positioning
Context and Positioning of NLAGA 2. Over the past fifteen years, several initiatives for development of research in mathematics in sub-Saharan Africa started. But much of them struggling to reach their goal because of low number of practicing scientists in mathematics and unsuitable research environment capacity in the sub-region. In this context, the first NLAGA’s research project has been initiated and approved by the Simons Foundation in year 2012. Among its main goals for five years funding, there were the publication of at least thirty (30) papers in international journals, the mentoring of twenty (20) African Ph.D students, the organization of African training research schools, international conferences and the building of an attractive, stimulating and sustainable West African research network on Non Linear Analysis, Geometry and their Applications to solve real world problems such as coastal erosion, urban net- works, and cancer models. Since its beginning in 2013, several activities have been organized and results have been obtained by the NLAGA AMP grant. We summarize them hereafter.
- Seventy three (73) papers on problems directly related to the tasks described in the NLAGA’s first proposal have been published in scientific peer- reviewed journals.
- Forty four (44) Ph.D students have been recruited in the framework of the project. Twenty (20) of them are supported by the AMP's grant and the remaining have been granted by the Senegalese Government.
- Eight (8) international research schools gathering several young African mathematicians have been organized by members of the project and supported by the AMP's grant.
- Eight (8) international workshops or conferences have been organized in the framework of the project and supported by the AMP's grant.
- Thirteen (13) consolidation lectures have been organized for the recruited Ph.D students, graduate students in mathematics regularly enrolled in West African universities and investigators wishing to broaden their mathematical fields of interest.
It is important to stress that some open questions remain to be investigated. This second NLAGA’s proposal takes these open questions and extends them with new issues. Hence its guideline is the gathering of West African expertises - in Partial Differential Equations, Geometrical Analysis of Optimal Shapes, Geometric Structures, Optimization and Optimal Transportation - with their international partners in a large but selective network to deepen and consolidate the initiated development in West Africa of Non Linear Analysis, Geometry and their Applications and pursue the training of sub-Saharan African graduate students.