BIUST, a young and dynamic institution in Botswana, has two faculties: Faculty of Engineering and Technology (FET) and the Faculty of Science (FOS). The FOS has 6 departments including Department of Earth and Environmental Science and the Department of physics and astronomy. BIUST a good record in participating in and leading international research projects. BIUST has received a large grant (>1.5 million USD) from the Simmons Foundation for improving mobility and networking in mathematics and related fields “Research Graduate Studies in Mathematics and its Applications: A network Approach” and from Unicef to improve gender balance in science “Organisation of Women in Science for Developing Countries (OWSD)-UNITED NATIONS” (ca. 70k USD). BIUST is the leading institution of two Intra-Africa projects: ELbM under EACEA 2019 call (www.elbmmobility.org) and PAPSSN under EACEA 2020 call (www.papssnmobility.org; Grant n. 624224). Projects pertaining to education and training in space science have been funded, such as the DARA Project/Newton Project (Department of Physics and Astronomy) which aims to develop radio astronomy skills for the SKA/AVN projects with funding allocated from 2016 to 2022. BIUST is one of the two African institutions directly involved as partner in the Europlanet 2024 Research Infrastructure, a 10-million euro project funded by the European Commission under Horizon2020 INFRAIA programme (Local Coordinator Dr Fulvio Franchi). The Department of Earth and Environmental Science at BIUST is responsible for the Planetary Field Analogue under the Europlanet 2024 RI Transnational Access facilities (https://www.europlanet-society.org/europlanet-2024-ri/transnational-access-ta/). Staff from the department pursue research in extreme environments, astrobiology, space weather, planetary atmospheric science. The Department is also the host of the PAPSSN Intra-Africa project coordinated by Associate Professor Fulvio Franchi.
The Department of Physics and Astronomy has been mandated by Government to build human capital and skills in radio astronomy as it pertains to Botswana’s involvement with the SKA project. As such it will host telescopes of the Hydrogen Intensity and Real-time Analysis experiment (HIRAX) and African VLBI Network (AVN) and is a partner of the UK Newton Fund project titled “Development in Africa with Radio Astronomy) (DARA). Other research conducted in the Department includes Astrophysics, Complex Systems, Materials Science, as well as Applied Nuclear Science and Technology.
Role in the project
WP1: BIUST is the nominated coordinating institution of FAST4Future, Associate Professor Fulvio Franchi being the project coordinator. The CMT will be based at BIUST and will comprise of the coordinator, a project manager and a project administrator. BIUST will provide financial management and support in administering the project and management through the Department of International Linkages and Partnerships and Research Office.
WP3: BIUST will contribute in the organization of the schedule for the events and in the implementation of the contents in the virtual centre.
WP 5: BIUST will exploit the experience and infrastructure created within 2 ongoing Intra-Africa projects to assist in the implementation of physical and virtual mobility programmes .
WP 6: BIUST has been mandated by the Government of Botswana to create the first in house built satellite in Botswana and therefore is creating the project team and facilities for such an endeavour. BIUST has also been mandated by the Government of Botswana to host the Botswana Radio Telescope for the AVN Project with the aim of developing human capital and skills for the SKA Project. With this background BIUST will take part in the skill transfer process being one of the recipients of the transfer of technical knowledge.
WP 7: BIUST will contribute in preparing content for outreach and advertisement of the project results/events. BIUST has been organizing STEM festivals for several years now and will contribute to the organization of the event in Botswana.