#RSAfrica26 On Building a Sustainable Research Software and HPC Training Pipeline in West Africa

Abstract

This presentation was delivered at Research Software Africa 2026 (RSAfrica26) and describes the development and evaluation of a pilot training pathway created by the Center for Computational Research and Education (CCRE) to expand participation in high-performance computing (HPC), research software engineering, and computational research in Africa. The pilot used a staged model comprising open recruitment, application review, structured preparatory training, mentored group projects using HPC resources, and post-program evaluation. Twenty-four applicants were documented, twelve were selected for the preparatory stage, and six completed all required modules and advanced to mentored computational projects. Participants worked on end-to-end research workflows including thermal-hydraulic surrogate modeling and machine-learning-based brain-tumor MRI classification. The pilot identified persistent barriers involving access to HPC resources, computing cost, local mentorship, structured training pathways, and research-computing communities. The presentation argues that sustainable computational capacity requires more than access to hardware and proposes a framework centered on four interconnected elements: access, preparation, mentored practice, and sustainability. The presentation is based on the preprint: Afful, J. et al. (2026), Introducing HPC-Enabled Computational Research Training in Africa: A Pilot Study. Research Square. https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-10437458/v1 Presented at Research Software Africa 2026 (RSAfrica26), 27 August 2026. Research Square preprint10.21203/rs.3.rs-10437458/v1 RSAfrica26 conference presentation10.5281/zenodo.22183129