Future Africa Workshop Day for Early Career Research Fellows

The Early Career Research Fellows attended two thoughtful workshops on 16 October at Future Africa. A ‘Future Studies’ workshop was held early on Wednesday  by expert Dr Robert Bourgeois and a Science Communication session was later facilitated by Ms Anina Mumm of Sciencelink.

Dr Robert Bourgeois joined us from the Center for the Advancement of Scholarship to share his knowledge of “Anticipation as a disciple” with the Early Career Research Leader Fellows. This topic stimulated new thinking in the fellows’ diverse social, natural and physical science backgrounds and inspired them to consider how anticipation as a discipline can transform the future. Dr Robert Bourgeois showed how anticipation in this day and age offers indisputable evidence that people around the world are changing the way in which they understand the present through using the future. As humanity is moving to integrate complexity and uncertainty into what we see and do, so is the practice of anticipation occurring.

Ms Anina Mumm introduced a number of science communication skills to the fellows. Ms Mumm highlighted the importance of communicating research to the general public; as taxpayers, society has a right to know what government funded research is being carried out at institutes and having clear communication with society can reshape research projects with more effective outputs. Fellows were guided to think about their audiences and how to adapt their communication to best engage non-academics. The Sciencelink team captured video clips of the Early Career Research Fellows explaining how their research will uplift Africa.