The MARM programme links African academics with their UK and European counterparts via professional collaborative partnerships. The focus of MARM is on building infrastructure and networking in mathematics in Africa, as well as supporting collaboration between mathematicians in non-African countries with a strong mathematical infrastructure and their African colleagues and students. Its wider aim is to foster long-term collaborative relationships between colleagues in UK/Europe and Africa.
The scheme awards grants of £4,000 to support partnerships between UK/European and African mathematics departments.
The MARM programme has been running since 2005. In the past it was part-funded by the Nuffield Foundation, the Leverhulme Trust, and the International Mathematical Union, as well as by the LMS. Since 2005, 25 mentoring relationships have previously been supported through a MARM project, in Cameroon, Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Kenya, Morocco, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda.
The scheme is overseen by the MARM Board.
A booklet and poster describing the impact of the programme and showing the diversity of the partnerships formed since 2005 were produced for the IMU CDC poster session on Strengthening Mathematics in the Developing World, held on 7 August 2018.
Applications for Round 7 of MARM Partnership Grants
Applications for Round 7 of the MARM Partnership Grants are now open.
Click here for details of how to apply as a partner based in UK/Europe.
Click here for details of how to apply as a partner based in Africa.
MARM Partnership Grants 2019/20 (Round 6)
Four grants were awarded in the last round and the partnerships started in November 2020. The partnerships are as follows:
MARM-20-01: Awardee - Maciej Dunajski (Cambridge), paired with Universite Gaston Berger, Senegal
*MARM-20-02: Awardee - Letterio Gatto (Politecnico di Torino) – paired with University of Namibia, Namibia
*This partnership included the Namibian International Spring School of Mathematics, which took place on October 23-28, 2022. See the poster for this event here. See the event website here.
MARM-20-03: Awardee - Sergey E. Mikhailov (Brunel), paired with Adama Science and Technology University, Ethiopia
MARM-20-04: Awardee - Luca Giuggioli (Bristol), paired with Universite Felix Houphouet Boigny (UFHB), Ivory Coast
Activities undertaken by previous MARM Partnerships
See case studies of previous MARM partnerships here.
Each partnership has collaboratively defined its own objectives and priorities specific to the needs of the African institution, as well as its own methods of accomplishing these.
Activities underaken have included:
- Exchange visits
- Lectures, seminars and workshop series at African institutions
- Joint PhD supervision
- Improvements in library and IT resources at African institutions
- Support for conference attendance (in Africa and internationally)
- Consultancy and advice on developing postgraduate programmes
- Mentoring and support for African postgraduate students with respect to wider academic skills
- Mentoring African early career staff in research and other skills
- Working with African university administrators to improve recruitment
- Improving African departmental structuring
- Working with African institutions to ensure the maintenance of resources for mathematics departments
- Development of research contacts and networking