Combinatorial Research Studio (CoRS)

The support of ISP and Sida bilateral research programmes initiated the establishment of several multinational research groups in Africa. One of those groups is the Combinatorial Research Studio (CoRS), whose objective is to initiate and develop research in enumerative combinatorics in the region.

African member universities in CoRS are:

• Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia
• University of Antananarivo, Madagascar
• Makerere University, Uganda
• Mbarara University of Science and Technology, Uganda

Supervising/mentoring collaborators from France and Sweden are:

• Paris City University, France
• Stockholm University, Sweden

Through the last two years the group conducted regular weekly zoom seminars increasing the students research capacity and co-worked on several research topics. As a direct outcome of those activities one of group members graduated (PhD) in Autumn 2021 and two others will graduate in the spring 2022. Several papers have been published or submitted.

CoRS has been successful in gathering very talented students and supervising collaborators from Sweden and France. Moreover, almost half of the members of CoRS are female scientists. Members in the group comes from Ethiopia, Uganda and Madagascar.

Except for the continuation of the zoom-seminars, future plans include two more workshops in 2022 and participation in an international conference in Bangalore, India. In order to secure sustainability, the group is eager to invite more students and researchers from Africa to join the CoRS group and conduct research. To prepare new candidates, CoRS group members will offer an online course on basic combinatorics. The course may take place during the autumn 2022.