The Carnegie Corporation of New York announced today the creation of a new graduate-level training program for African academics in science and engineering.

The Africa Regional Initiative in Science and Education, or RISE, will offer research and education opportunities for faculty members at universities in sub-Saharan Africa. Carnegie will provide $3.3-million over three years and hopes eventually to draw support from governments and development banks.

The project’s ultimate goal is to build a cadre of well-trained professors who will stay in Africa to work on problems specific to the continent. The program will do that by creating networks of universities, research institutes, and government laboratories in various African countries that will provide equipment, training, and research opportunities.

The first three networks, to be selected through a competition, will be announced next year. Their goal will be to “apply science-based solutions to a variety of critical contemporary challenges and to build a foundation for future innovation.”

The project will be run by the Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton, N.J., together with partners in Africa.

RISE builds on Carnegie’s existing work in developing Africa’s higher-education infrastructure. In 2000, Carnegie was one of four foundations that created the Partnership for Higher Education in Africa, which spent $150-million to strengthen select African universities. That partnership has since expanded to seven foundations with an additional $200-million in financing.

Carnegie officials said their work in the partnership would continue, but with a shift in emphasis away from institutional development and toward faculty development. —Beth McMurtrie