Africa faces serious problems – droughts and famines, infectious diseases and a shortage of good housing, to name a few. Each country also faces unique challenges, from the recent conflicts in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to exceptionally high HIV infection rates in South Africa.

Earlier this year, science ministers from the continent agreed to start an “African decade of science”. Financial resources are scarce, however, and the need to address critical problems urgent. How do governments juggle spending on science with humanitarian needs?

There are examples of excellent science in Africa which may provide the answer. The UK’s science academy, the Royal Society, has for the past six years recognised the work of young scientists from the continent through its . This year’s winner, , is working to save thousands of Tanzanians from sickle-cell disease (SCD).

Something that has struck me about Makani is her extensive links to researchers inside and outside Africa. Such collaboration is likely to be the linchpin of further scientific success in Africa: researchers there need to be able to identify problems and then engage with peers in Europe, Asia and the US to find solutions. The for collaborative research projects between the UK and research institutions in Ghana or Tanzania help support this.

Pledges and reality

Africa has been of special interest to me since my son was a volunteer in Ethiopia under the in 2003. As a scientist I can see the benefit that science could bring. But I am also conscious that it is difficult for African governments to justify funding a lot of basic research.

For example, in 1980, as part of the adopted by the Organization of African Unity – the African Union’s predecessor – African governments pledged to spend 1 per cent of GDP on R&D, a goal that was . However, of the 54 member nations of the African Union, only South Africa, Uganda and Malawi have achieved anything close to this.

Most African countries get the majority of their R&D budgets from overseas, mainly from philanthropists, non-governmental organisations, aid agencies and traditional funders such as the Wellcome Trust. There is a need for this, but some might argue that it prevents the nations from choosing their own research priorities.

As foreign secretary elect of the Royal Society, I am determined to engage with Africa to help address such issues; a determination shared by the current foreign secretary, . My starting point will be to ask scientists in African countries what they need to become part of the international scientific community. My experience with Ethiopia has taught me the importance of listening to African scientists, rather than telling them what to do.

Championing science

The work of the African national science academies is a crucial part in the jigsaw. Last month I met representatives from 13 out of the 17 academies: it was a chance to learn from each other about communicating scientific priorities to governments and policy-makers, something that can truly save lives.

A case in point was the catastrophic failure of scientific evidence to inform policy in South Africa at the turn of the century. Thabo Mbeki, the country’s president at the time, – the belief that various non-infectious factors such as recreational and pharmaceutical drug use are the cause of AIDS and that HIV is a harmless passenger virus. It is estimated that his policies over the eight years to 2007 because of delay in the provision of antiretroviral drugs.

In 2007, the Academy of Science of South Africa released an which gained international recognition and helped to shift South Africa’s public HIV policy back to the mainstream. The academy has since produced a wide variety of policy reports and is now an important independent adviser to the government.

This emphasises just how vital the academies can be, both supporting and building on the strengths of their scientific communities and using their position to bridge the gap between science and society. By acting as champions for science, they are able to demonstrate the value of investment in it and create an in-country demand for it.

In the UK, the case for the public funding of science revolves around it being an engine for economic growth. My African colleagues are keen to make a similar case, as well as demonstrate that high-quality research underpins their ability to respond to issues such as healthcare, sustainable agriculture and clean water.

Looking ahead

Academies also have an important role in nurturing the next generation of researchers. The Royal Society supports promising young researchers in the UK as the potential scientific leaders of tomorrow. It believes a similar approach will be effective in Africa. As in the UK, African scientists also need to engage with the public and stimulate a wider interest so that young people are motivated to study science and pursue scientific careers.

We cannot tell Africa what science it needs to do but we can help it to develop that agenda. It has to be set by its public, policy-makers, governments and scientists together. Despite the many hurdles ahead, one thing is certain: scientific research must become as much a part of Africa’s long-term development as building roads, vaccinating children and improving education.

The problem is that science can be complicated and, for a general audience,
needs to be explained. Most scientists try to simplify complicated examples. But
if they water it down too much, the result can be insipid or incomprehensible.
It merely reinforces preconceptions that science is boring, a form of
intellectual train spotting. Lively demonstrations do help, but constraints on
funds and worries about safety mean these are often reduced to computer
simulations.

The demonstration lecture is still the most dramatic and convincing way of
putting science across to a general audience. The sight, sound and debris of a
large indoor explosion just can’t be faked. This was the appeal of Colonel B. D.
Shaw’s famous lecture on explosives, probably the best known of its kind in
Britain. Shaw, a hero of two world wars and an organic chemist at the University
of Nottingham, retired from lecturing in 1990. By then, he had performed his
lecture 1600 times over 62 years and delighted generations of the public in
universities, industry, conference centres, hotels, fire stations and village
halls from Nottingham to California.

“Never tell the audience what’s going to happen,” Shaw once advised me.
“Something may go wrong. Just tell them to watch your experiment, then you can
adjust your patter accordingly.” The audience needs to feel that things can go
disastrously wrong at any moment. They even like the occasional demonstration
that doesn’t work. Surely no one would fake an unsuccessful experiment?

Shaw recently reached his 100th birthday, and we celebrated it here in
Nottingham’s chemistry department with a half-day meeting to promote the art of
the demonstration lecture.

Alec Campbell of the University of Newcastle said that demonstrations must be
meaningful. Lectures in the 19th century were often full of dangerous live
demonstrations, but few managed to inspire their audience because they were
frequently pointless, such as when an Edinburgh chemist poured white-hot lead
over the hands of the then Prince of Wales. But there must have been some
excitement when a famous French chemist mistakenly downed a glass of mercuric
chloride, thinking it was water. (It made him very ill, but he survived.)

David Jones of Daedalus fame (who is also from the University of Newcastle)
said that experiments can be simplified without trivialising them. He showed how
air can be weighed in a lemonade bottle, how fireworks burn underwater and how
“pure” food colours can be separated into several component colours by
chromatography on a T-shirt. Without the usual mumbo jumbo of laboratory
apparatus, the effects were even more striking and none of the scientific impact
was lost.

Practising scientists are often faced with the problem of how to communicate
with schoolchildren. Ann Hubbard, head of chemistry at Reigate College and this
year’s winner of the University of Nottingham’s prestigious B. D. Shaw Medal,
explained how to use classic chemical demonstrations to enthral a young
audience. She can persuade an eight year old that the human body is made up of
chemicals and that without metal smelting there would be no computer games.

It sounds as if chemists, physicists and engineers should consider putting
away their computer simulations and brush up some classic experiments in time
for next year’s Science Week. My colleague Jim Gamble and I had a little
practice ourselves when we re-enacted Shaw’s famous experiment. We fired a
candle from a musket of the Crimean War through four thicknesses of plywood. I
leave you to figure out why a cylindrical candle fired through a cylindrical
barrel leaves a rectangular hole in the first sheet of plywood, or see our
Web-site for the answer.

The National Week of Science, Engineering and Technology starts Friday 13
March and runs until 22 March. A B.D. Shaw Web site is being opened at
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/b.d.shaw.centenary