Towards an African Light Source.

Abstract

An advanced light source (AdLS) presents itself as the most important scientific investment that Africa could construct at this point in its history. There is an urgent imperative to develop all the world’s socioeconomic prowess more equitably across its diversity. There needs to be a more universal and regionally balanced participation in the global economy. This would reflect in science becoming a truly global enterprise. This is rather fundamental, as innovation is the most important factor that drives economic development (Romer 1986). The crystal ball indicates that Africa will soon be home to the bulk of the world’s youth (United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division 2017). These young people will need to be engaged in the economy. Africa currently has a population of 1.2 billion, with 169 scientists per million people (UNESCO 2015a). This is a factor of 20 times less than the average of Europe. Africa therefore needs at least one million new scientists to drive its economic development through innovation. The vision of achieving sustainable and equitable development drives the logic of investment in science, technology, and innovation. All seventeen of the sustainable development goals of UNESCO must be progressed (UNESCO 2015b). The new large-scale scientific infrastructure must be both multi- and inter-disciplinary. The obvious candidate is the AdLS (LAAAMP 2018). Many have asked whether Africa is ready for such a technologically sophisticated large-scale scientific infrastructure. The answer is YES. Africa is long overdue for the acquisition of such an transformative instrument. Africa simply cannot afford to lag behind the rest of the world as now the only habitable continent without an AdLS. Some regions beyond Africa already have several generations of emerging career scientists trained to use this kind of premier tool for scientific enquiry. These second and later generations of scientists are now often active in industry, creating awareness and knowledge of the AdLS analytical and characterization prowess within the commercial world. With this impetus and also the outreach actions of AdLSs, many AdLSs worldwide now have dedicated industrial liaison or business development offices with the mission to engage with industry for exploitation of light source facilities and intellectual property). AdLSs have started to make the leap from academia to industry. They have progressed now to become a premier tool driving and supporting industrial innovation (biotechnology, nanotechnology, energy technology, and many more) through the advanced characterization of materials and living matter, going far beyond the capabilities of conventional X-ray sources. Several facilities, such as the APS (USA), SPring8 (Japan), and SLS (Switzerland) have beamlines wholly or partially owned by industry, and most light sources run significant commercial programmes with industry for proprietary access to the X-ray beamlines. Complementing this, it is important to note that engagement with industry is also significant through the public access programs where industry, usually in collaboration with academic teams, works on applied R&D with publishable results. This is an important engagement mechanism, supporting innovation via precompetitive research, and it is estimated that some 20–40% of public programs have industry relevance or engagement as part of the work being carried out. Of course, we can have African suitcase scientists, who travel abroad when they need to use international research facilities, such as AdLSs. But then, ultimately, we lose many of the elite emerging African scientists to the African science diaspora. Africa misses out on the mega-science techno-industrial research and manufacturing parks that emerge around significant local research infrastructural capacity. An AdLS is not only just about good science but also about retaining innovators and seeding local competitive industry. Indeed though, an AdLS has stringent requirements on political stability, reliable electrical energy, travel connections, and Internet bandwidth. Indeed, it also requires an established user base of active scientists and also a strong local technological capacity (see Table ​Table1).1). We have not said, indeed, that it requires financial capacity, since this aspect is simply about prioritization. An AdLS costs approximately half to one billion euros to construct, and a similar amount to operate, maintain, and upgrade every decade thereafter. Therefore, it is similar in cost to a football stadium, or a percentage of a large municipal railway system, or a large-scale power station. Thus, an AdLS is eminently affordable by the governments of Africa pooling their financial resources. Africa must just understand its contribution to transformation of continental socio-economics. Table 1 Requirements to host a synchrotron