Table 1.

Topline Executive Points to Rethink for Sustainable Scientific Capacity Building in Africa and Sustainable Innovation for All

• H3Africa and other infrastructure capacity building efforts for 21st century science and knowledge-based innovation around the world are valuable initiatives that can potentially benefit many. Yet the dynamic 21st century science initiatives demand real-time calibration including of the efforts for capacity building such as H3Africa and beyond. Voices and scientific expertise in Africa “from the ground up” are crucial to build a sustainable future for Africa and by Africans in the course of H3Africa and well beyond.

• Any capacity building effort in Africa cannot afford to overlook the long and painful historical context of biosample shipments from the continent by researchers situated elsewhere offshore; this history has to be born in mind for any biomedical and life sciences consortia to succeed now and in the future.

• Capacity-building should materialize in the entire knowledge co-production trajectory from idea generation (e.g., brainstorming workshops for innovative idea generation by African scientists) to data generation (e.g., genome sequencing) to data analysis, interpretation and knowledge-based innovation and ultimately science-driven societal development and prosperity. In the course of capacity building, subcontracting out or outsourcing any component of the above scientific knowledge trajectory would lead to many adverse potentials such as brain drain, unsustainable capacity building that does not stand the test of time and the local context and the 21st century science, among others. An integrated capacity building in the course of H3Africa and other capacity building initiatives are essential.

• For sustainable capacity building, what is needed, in addition to ethics and policy, is a critical lens on discourse and promissory rhetoric that questions the unchecked assumptions of science, scientists and social scientists alike; this can be achieved by incorporating a political science and discourse analysis pillar to collective innovation and capacity building efforts such as H3Africa that will – at a truly independent arms length – question-the-questions and the embedded assumptions in science and knowledge based innovation (De Vries, 2004; Jasanoff, 2003; 2013; Wynne, 2010).

• Finally, it is important to bear in mind opportunity costs as well: That the end-game in scientific infrastructure capacity building is not limited to genomics but should also consider other omics technologies including technologies that are simple (e.g., frugal innovation) and importantly, consider innovative ways to link (translate) discovery science and technology to knowledge-based innovation and prosperity for all.