Brazzaville Assembly Sets 2026 Research Agenda
Meeting in ordinary general assembly on January 30 in Brazzaville, members of the National Academy of Sciences and Technologies of Congo (ANSTC) delivered a sobering assessment of the country’s scientific research ecosystem. The discussion focused on structural constraints that, in the Academy’s view, continue to limit the capacity of national research to respond to development priorities and to the accelerating global competition for knowledge and innovation.
The gathering also carried a forward-looking purpose: it formally opened the 2026 academic year of the ANSTC. In that context, the Academy’s president, Professor Assori Itoua Ngaporo, who also serves as General Delegate for Scientific Research, outlined the principal orientations expected to guide the institution’s work in the months ahead. The tone combined institutional candour with a clear determination to consolidate an Academy that aims to serve as a national reference point for scientific rigour and public-interest expertise.
A Cross-Disciplinary Community, Still Seeking Critical Mass
The assembly brought together many of the country’s prominent scientific figures, reflecting the ANSTC’s ambition to stand above disciplinary boundaries. Participants came from fundamental sciences, agriculture, human and social sciences, environmental studies, engineering, and computer science. This breadth matters in practical terms: it is precisely the intersection of disciplines that increasingly shapes solutions in areas such as food systems, climate resilience, public health, industrial competitiveness, and digital transformation.
Yet the Academy’s own diagnosis suggests that multidisciplinary representation does not automatically translate into sustained collective momentum. The ANSTC’s leadership explicitly raised the issue of limited mobilisation within parts of the national scientific community, an observation that points to a familiar challenge in many research systems: building durable institutional routines, predictable calendars of scholarly activity, and incentives that reward the consistent production and dissemination of knowledge.
Funding for Research and Innovation: A Central Constraint
Professor Itoua Ngaporo addressed the Academy’s most immediate operational difficulty without euphemism: financing. Using a deliberately vivid formulation, he argued that scientific ambition cannot be achieved without resources, insisting that a system lacking stable funding cannot credibly claim to compete, deliver, or endure. His remarks were framed as a call to recognise research and technological innovation as strategic investments rather than discretionary expenses.
In this perspective, the issue is not merely the Academy’s internal budget. It is, more broadly, the level of State funding devoted to scientific research and technological innovation. The ANSTC’s message suggests that the absence of adequate financial means constrains the organisation of conferences and scholarly debates, the capacity to valorise research outputs, and the ability to distinguish and support excellence through recognition mechanisms that encourage researchers to remain engaged and productive.
Official Recognition of ANSTC: A Legal and Institutional Question
Beyond funding, the assembly returned to a second, more institutional challenge: the lack of formal recognition of the ANSTC by public authorities. The Academy was created on December 27, 2011 and has now accumulated fourteen years of existence, yet, according to its leadership, it has not been instituted by law. In practical terms, this status leaves the institution without a dedicated headquarters and without a regular State subsidy, conditions that can weaken administrative continuity and long-term planning.
The discussion, however, was not limited to complaint. A cautious note of optimism emerged from reference to proposals reportedly put forward by the newly appointed minister responsible for Scientific Research and Technological Innovation, aimed at securing official recognition for the Academy. Professor Itoua Ngaporo suggested that the ANSTC could be associated with the work of the commission responsible for drafting the decree that would define the Academy’s organisation and functioning. If implemented, such a step would represent an institutional clarification with potentially significant effects on credibility, stability, and the Academy’s capacity to contribute to policy debates.
ANSTC’s Mission: Ideas, Standards and Scientific Excellence
A key part of the president’s intervention concerned the very definition of what a national academy of sciences should be. In his account, the ANSTC must be more than an honorary circle; it should operate as an ideas laboratory anchored in scientific standards. That includes the production and valorisation of knowledge, the organisation of conferences, colloquia and debates, and the active promotion of multidisciplinarity as a method for addressing complex national problems.
He also emphasised excellence as both a principle and a practice. Recognising the best researchers is, in this view, not symbolic decoration but a tool of governance for the research system: it makes achievement visible, it creates peer benchmarks, and it encourages younger scholars to adopt rigorous methods. Such an approach implies that the Academy sees itself as a custodian of scientific norms, capable of stimulating intellectual life while helping public decision-makers access credible expertise.
Internal Governance: Elections and Executive Reinforcement
The assembly’s proceedings also included institutional housekeeping that signals continuity. Members elected a new full member, and the executive bureau was reinforced, a process that typically aims to distribute responsibilities more effectively and to ensure that administrative functions keep pace with the organisation’s ambitions.
Professor Itoua Ngaporo welcomed both the level of participation and the backing of the Academy’s partners. In the ANSTC’s narrative, this support forms part of a broader ecosystem necessary for scientific institutions to thrive, especially in contexts where public resources are under pressure and where research actors must constantly demonstrate the practical value of their work to society and the economy.
Research Governance in Congo: A Measured Outlook for 2026
Taken together, the messages delivered in Brazzaville outline a dual agenda for 2026: strengthen the material conditions of research while consolidating the Academy’s institutional standing. The ANSTC’s diagnosis places emphasis on systemic issues rather than personalising responsibility, and it articulates solutions that remain compatible with a gradual, policy-driven approach: improved financing, formal recognition, and more sustained engagement by scientists themselves.
In the near term, much will depend on the ability of the relevant ministerial structures and the Academy to translate proposals into legally and administratively coherent steps, including the possible involvement of the ANSTC in the commission drafting the decree on its organisation and functioning. For the country’s research community, the assembly reads as both an alert and an invitation: to treat science not as a marginal sector, but as an indispensable pillar of national capacity-building, aligned with the State’s development priorities under President Denis Sassou Nguesso.
