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The Cambridge-Africa community sadly lost a pillar on June 3 2020 when Dr Amit Bhasin passed away. Dr Amit had only been with the Cambridge-Africa team for a year but his positive ‘can do’ approach
made him familiar and warmly regarded by so many in Cambridge.
He joined the University of Cambridge in 2019 as Programme Manager of Cambridge-Africa, a university initiative to support African researchers and promote equitable partnerships between Africa and Cambridge. Amit brought his energy, enthusiasm and experience to his new position, quickly identifying areas for improvement and expanding both the strategic thinking underpinning Cambridge-Africa and the
size of the network by connecting with his many friends and colleagues in Africa, and of course, making new friends across Cambridge.
Previously, he had worked on several programmes at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) particularly in the field of malaria and research capacity strengthening. I know he
touched the lives of all those who visited Cambridge from Africa in the year he spent with us and the many tributes we have received attest to his impact on the many people he came into contact with in
that year. We will miss his enthusiasm and commitment to his work and his untimely passing will leave a hole in the team and of course our thoughts are with his family who will miss him most of all.
In other news
In the past three months, the Cambridge-Africa team have welcomed Polly Basakand Carol Ibe. Polly works to support collaborations between the Uganda Cancer Institute and oncology researchers and clinicians in Cambridge. Dr Carol Ibe has also joined the team for a few months to consider how Cambridge-Africa can support African post-doctoral researchers.
Regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, Cambridge-Africa decided in mid-March to work remotely, about a week before the University of Cambridge shut. This year has been one of two distinct halves for me – I spent January and February in Uganda and then the second half at home. Although the University is slowly and carefully reopening to those who need to be there (those that are doing lab based work predominantly),
everyone else is required to continue working from home. This is in part to help achieve the physical distancing that is important to reduce chances of individuals getting ill and spread of a second wave of the pandemic. This is expected to impact the plans of those who were intending to come to Cambridge
over the next months. Currently all those entering the UK are required to self-isolate in quarantine for fourteen days. The visa offices in Kampala and Nairobi are currently closed.
It will be important to be in contact with mentors well in advance of planning a mentorship visit to Cambridge. Many in the university aren’t able to welcome visitors to their labs due to the university’s policy on physical distancing. (If you have any questions about your visits, please get in touch with me.) In the meantime, much of Cambridge-Africa’s activities have focused on supporting research
collaborations to increase resilience to COVID-19 in Africa. This has been supported through a specific COVID-19 Cambridge-Africa ALBORADA call and so far 15 research projects have been funded and a few further applications are under review. Two of these funded collaborations are with researchers
based at Kenyan Universities – one is working to design and manufacture open source low cost oxygen concentrators and the other is researching the role that social media is playing in shaping debates and
understanding around COVID-19 in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa with a focus on twitter content. These two projects exemplify the broad range of research activities that the ALBORADA fund supports. As the
COVID-19 call closes we have now opened a new call for applications to the Cambridge-Africa ALBORADA Research Fund for joint research collaborations between University of Cambridge and African researchers.
To be eligible, researchers must be at the post-doctoral level (or above). As THRiVE PhD fellows come towards the end of their research, this is something alumni as well as current post docs may want to apply for in the future in collaboration with their mentors or members of their mentor’s research group – another important reason for keeping the communication and relationship with your mentor going – these
research relationships being a key aspect of THRiVE’s north-south partnership.
