The "2020 CIMPA Research School on Functional Analysis and Applications" was held at the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa during the period 13-24 January, 2020. The aim of the research school was to bring together postgraduate students and early researchers, who are within five years of graduation with their PhD, of South Africa’s higher institutions and those of the neighbouring countries who are working in the fields of functional analysis.

IMU-Breakout Graduate Fellowships (BGF) awarded

The BGF Selection Committee of the CDC has completed during the month of September the evaluation of the nominations to BGF program received for the 2020 call. Three students have been awarded a BGF grant to complete a PhD program at their home countries: Benin, Indonesia and Uganda.

IMU-CDC very much appreciates the generous donations from all the Breakthrough Prize winners with which the BGF grants are funded.

The 2021 call will be announced in due time.

IMU-CDC Graduate Scholarships GRAID awarded

The Selection Committee has completed during the month of July the evaluation of the applications to GRAID (Graduate Research Assistantships in Developing Countries) program received for the 2020 call. Three research teams of Benin, Nepal and Ivory Coast have been awarded a GRAID grant to support one PhD student each. A team of Cameroon has received a grant to support one PhD student and two MS students.

The "African Workshop on Mathematical Optimisation" was held at the University of Zululand, South Africa during the period 11-15 November, 2019. With the target of introducing state of the art methods and developments in mathematical optimization, the school addressed a variety of topics in this field. Main topics included linear and non-linear programming, stochastic optimization, large scale optimization, dynamic optimization, multilevel programming and game theory along with computational optimization, specifically metaheuristics.

The "CIMPA School on Group Actions in Arithmetic and Geometry" was held at the Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia during the period 17-28 February, 2020. The lectures were held by 12 lecturers from 4 different countries. There were 65 participants (not including the lecturers) from 11 countries. The program of the school was designed to give a wide variety of instances of actions of groups in arithmetic and geometry. The topics which were covered included: finite fields, coding theory, covering spaces, representation theory, modular forms and Galois theory.