Widening participation would be key in enhancing bioinformatics and genomics research in Africa

Karikari, Thomas K.; Quansah, Emmanuel; Mohamed, Wael M.Y.

disciplines Fatumo et al., 2014; H3Africa Consortium et al., 2014; Karikari, 2015a) . Notable among these are the recent capacity-building efforts of the Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa) Consortium, the H3ABioNet continent-wide bioinformatics network and The World Bank (Table 1) ; these programmes have been discussed elsewhere Bishop et al., 2015; Folarin et al., 2014; Karikari, 2015a) . In Africa, many of the BGS capacitybuilding efforts till date have focussed on strengthening the scientific capacity in leading universities and research institutes (Bishop et al., 2015; H3Africa Consortium et al., 2014; Karikari, 2015a) . For example, since its establishment in 1996, the South African National Bioinformatics Network, the first BGS-related scientific network in Africa, established regional nodes (centres of excellence) at leading institutions to develop BGS activities in the country (Bishop et al., 2015; Masiga and Isokpehi, 2004) . More recently, H3ABioNet established nodes mostly at African institutions with BGS capacities to influence the development of the field (Bishop et al., 2015; H3Africa Consortium et al., 2014) . According to data from Webometrics (http:// www.webometrics.info), a leading academic ranking initiative, most of these nodes are located at highly-ranked institutions (in their respective countries). Rightly, locating nodes at leading institutions provides opportunities for intra-and inter-institutional partnerships aimed at propagating BGS activities. However, while this may be an excellent approach to facilitate the expansion of the disciplines, it seems that activities of this nature mostly favour scientists who have been previously exposed to BGS, leaving behind those who may have no appreciation of these areas yet. For instance, although the H3ABioNet nodes and other scientific organisations do organise training programmes for African scientists (Bishop et al., 2015; Karikari, 2015a) , these programmes often require applicants to have some level of basic or intermediate understanding in specific topics, a requirement that naturally favours applicants from institutions where BGS activities can be found. Although foundation courses are also sometimes offered, only a limited number of applicants can be accepted onto such courses. Furthermore, the existing BGS courses are often held in the cities, which is a disadvantage to scientists based at rural institutions due to transportation problems and general lack of funding. Consequently, BGS research output on the continent is dominated by, and is almost limited to, institutions with existing capacities. For example, BGS-related publications in Ghana over the past decade have been produced by scientists affiliated to a few research and higher education institutions (RHEIs); these institutions are mostly highly-ranked (Karikari, 2015a ). The situation is not different in Nigeria where only twenty research groups working on BGS-related themes have been identified, mostly in the country's best ranked institutions . While BGS are relatively new research areas in Africa, strategies should be devised to ensure that their introduction becomes more equitable and not skewed to only a few institutions, in order to prevent future imbalances.