Africa's first green chemistry training school offers inspiration to students and early-career scientists
A new 欧美AV-backed training school in Morocco has made history by being Africa's first dedicated to green chemistry.
attracted more than 50 students and early-career chemical scientists from 16 countries to for the inaugural week-long programme.
Leading experts from around the world gave lectures and led workshops during the intensive training school that saw them share their experiences with the next generation.
Professor Youssef Habibi, a professor and director of the at the university and the man behind the training school, described its opening as a 'dream come true'.
More than 200 students and young professionals applied to attend, with organisers facing a difficult job deciding who to invite, with 52 granted a place at the school in Ben Guerir.
The school, which has received a certificate denoting it as approved training from the 欧美AV, aims to become a fixture in the African science calendar.
"I was so surprised personally - the students really took it on board and wanted to thank me for this experience," he said. "There was one student from Niger who came to me with tears in their eyes and said this is not only a career-changing experience but this is a life-expanding experience because it was the first time she had left her home city and country and that was to come to this school.
"It was heartwarming to see everyone posting LinkedIn testimonies about it and I even received emails of thanks from professors of some of the students who attended, people I had never met, saying that it had been a motivational experience.
“Our president, my colleagues and I receive other testimonies saying we had this extraordinary school at the university and now everyone is waiting for the second edition to come.”
As well as offering an introduction to green chemistry, the initiative featured a host of sessions covering:
- Renewable feedstock and recycling
- Greening organic synthesis
- Greening inorganic synthesis
- Greening solvents and media
- Greening processes
- Life cycle, sustainability assessments and modelling.
The school aims to nurture best practices relating to chemical processes, which could improve environmental sustainability in the region and address the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals.
Prof Habibi, who previously worked in Europe and North America for more than two decades, said that while all of the attendees possessed a high level of chemistry knowledge, he admitted that green chemistry is still a nascent area of study in Africa.
Groups in Ethiopia and South Africa have explored the topic but there has historically been little continental collaboration in this field. The team at the Mohammed VI Polytechnic University were keen to make the school inclusive to as many nationalities from across Africa as possible, rather than just keeping it as a Moroccan initiative.
"I would say this is a unique initiative here," Prof Habibi explained. "We want to create a great African sustainability movement that can run parallel to the school so we can actually work hand in hand with each other and unify our efforts to build a real curriculum in green chemistry, rather than just having small courses and research initiatives here and there."
He added: "We had 16 African countries present for the first edition and now, in those students who joined us, I have more than 50 ambassadors with me talking about the school. People are reaching out to us to see how they can help at the African level."
One of the key issues affecting the uptake of green chemistry in Africa is the lack of accessibility to key resources, including up-to-date journal articles.
The problem for African researchers was laid bare when Prof Habibi asked colleagues from outside the continent to send over materials ahead of their presentations.
"They sent me links to the papers, which is what I would have done if I was in Europe," he said. "We had to say to them 'Please, we need the papers themselves because the vast majority of them don't have access to journals, otherwise they will have to rely on illegal websites to download this'."
Prof Habibi believes that Open Access offers a chance to level the playing field in terms of resources. He would also be keen to partner with some journals to enable more students to explore the latest developments in the field.
The difficulties in accessing existing research meant that GreenChemAfrica students had to start right at the beginning when the training school got under way.
"Most of them, if not all, have no clue about green chemistry, so we started with them really from the definition from scratch," Prof Habibi said. "They are very good at organic chemistry, analytical chemistry, and so on but when it comes to a new thing, most of the syllabus and the curricula here in Africa are old-fashioned so exploring new trends can be quite challenging. Having greater access would be extremely helpful."
Planning is already under way for next year's event, which will take place in late April on the main UM6P campus. Prof Habibi expects a similar number of interested researchers to attend, with places once again at a premium.
He is proud to see the first group of attendees already serving as 'ambassadors' for the programme and helping get the word to others in their networks and broaden awareness of the school in the future.
"People now know a bit about the school, about the concept, and we have had people reaching out to us to see how they can help," Prof Habibi said. "I will not say the second edition will be easy, but we have foundations in place for many things. Now, we are focusing on raising the bar a little bit and improving what we can."
Speaking of his pride at getting the school up and running, he added: "The dream became bigger and bigger and bigger as we planned it. UM6P really wants to be the innovation and education hub for Africa - not only for Morocco but for all of Africa - and that resonated in my head a lot. I said, 'well, I will make it an African school.'
"It was a huge challenge, I must confess, but nothing was too big or difficult for my team at Sus-Mat RC. This was just the start."
- Learn more about the GreenChemAfrica programme by .
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