Lappeenranta-Linköping collaboration in Africa

LUT Department of Mathematics and Physics has ongoing cooperation with Linköping University in an Africa-project. LiU has long-standing presence in supporting mathematics educational development and building research capacity in Eastern Africa, a shared interest with LUT. The LiU activities are funded by Sida (Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency) and the International Science Programme ISP, Uppsala.

With a five-year Sida grant five Swedish universities – with Linköping University as coordinator – are running a collaboration program with Makerere University in Kampala Uganda. The purpose is creation of research environments for mathematics including a currently running PhD program of 21 students. The students are supervised by both international and local supervisors. Some postdoc training is done also under this scheme. The program supports 7 PhD students in Applied Mathematics. Dr Matti Heiliö from Lappeenranta has been visiting Makerere twice a year, acting as a mentor for this Applied Math group. The recent Progress report meeting took place at Makerere on February 15, 2020.

LiU, the University of Rwanda (UR) and Stockholm University (SU) are also partners in the sub-program Strengthening Research Capacity in Mathematics, Statistics and Their Applications in Rwanda, coordinated by prof Martin Singul. The director of the Sida-Makerere project is prof Bengt-Ove Turesson in the Department of Mathematics at LiU. https://liu.se/en/article/new-mathematics-research-collaboration-in-uganda

Sida has been instrumental in the launch (2019) of East African Center for Mathematical Research EACMaR http://www.eacmar.org/ . There is a lot of possibility for ECMI-Africa interaction here. The mission is to promote and coordinate research and postgraduate training in pure and applied mathematics in the East African region in order to meet the needs of the society.