MooSciTIC: Training of trainers in West African research and higher education

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The MooSciTIC project is a capacity-building initiative targeting West African research scientists and higher education teachers.The project aimed to improve the self-reliance of researchers and upgrade research practices by providing on-site summer schools on transdisciplinary topics such as scientific writing, communication, and integrity.Here, we explain how this program was designed and implemented and share the positive responses from our trainees, hoping to inspire similar initiatives. Rationale and aim of the MooSciTIC projectIn our experience, the training of young researchers and teaching assistants in French-speaking Western African countries often lacks proper courses on key research-oriented aspects such as literature search, scientific writing, project management, scientific integrity, or ethics [1,2].In France and other high-income countries such cross-cutting notions are typically provided to postgraduate students through on-the-job training with varying degrees of supervision.This early training enables students to be progressively involved in "real life" research work through projects and publications and to start building their professional network.By contrast, mentoring from experienced colleagues is not always available at institutions in lowincome countries, resulting in a wide variation in research quality and visibility [3].This is especially true in French-speaking West Africa where research is highly fragmented and collaborative work culture is lacking, including at the national and regional levels.This skill gap, we feel, might be one element of a vicious circle (Fig 1) reminiscent of the Matthew effect [4], describing how successful science and scientists tend to become more successful with time.In this case, scientists from low-income countries are locked into continued dependency on their partners from high-income countries for the access to both high-quality

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