ASFAP & ACP2025

Kétévi A. Assamagan

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July 2025

Dr. Kétévi A. Assamagan BNL

African Strategy for �Fundamental and Applied Physics (ASFAP)

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Pan-African, gender balanced and inclusive

Mandating Body : African Physical Society (AfPS)

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Steering Committee: ASFAP-SteeringCommittee@cern.ch

Working Group Conveners: ASFAP-GroupConveners@cern.ch

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Web : https://africanphysicsstrategy.org/,

Wiki : https://twiki.cern.ch/twiki/bin/view/AfricanStrategy

Twitter: https://twitter.com/StrategyAsfap

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ASFAP

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1. Many strategies & implementation issues
1. What is ASFAP going to bring?

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• Objectives
• Engage African scientists and the international community in the Strategy development. Increase and sustain networking
• Develop the culture of regular strategies done by grassroots physicists, as opposed to top-down strategies initiated by governments or large political bodies where the broad community of physicists is not consulted
• The physics community plays an active role in shaping the strategic directions
• Support the African Physical Society to become a strong professional body

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• ASFAP Structure
• Broad footprint by discipline and fields
• Steering Committee, Advisory Committee, Group Conveners, Sub-group Conveners
• Solicitation of inputs from the community in the form of Letters of Interest (LOI), Surveys, Panel Discussion, Workshops, Conferences, regular meetings, and white paper Study Groups
1. Progress discussed in the relevant groups
2. Subgroup and group final reports (at the subgroup and convener levels); Strategy report at the Steering Committee level
3. Feedback and advice from the IAC

Structure and Organization

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• Overall coordination
• Final report

• Wide solicitation of community inputs
• Preparation of Group reports

Physics Education, Knowledge Transfer, Entrepreneurship, Communication and outreach, Stakeholders and Funding and Govt agencies, Policy Makers, related affairs.

• WG has 3-4 Convenors
• WG defines Sub WGs

• Review of progress
• Advice on scope
• Engagement of stakeholders
• Review and endorsement Report

• Intra-comms
• Review LOIs and WPs
• Help WGs in editing

• ASFAP CoC
• Ombudspersons

ASFAP Timeline

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ASFAP Town Hall

ASFAP Community Planning Meeting, March 7-11, 2022

Final report & symposium in 11/3-7/2025

ASFAP Working Meeting towards Final Report

Dec 15-17, 2024

Working Group Activities

1. Provide contributions to community inputs collections
• Letters of Interest (LOI), Survey, Workshop, Panel Discussions, Conferences, talks
• Submit LOIs https://indico.cern.ch/event/1061921/
2. Participate in (sub)group activities
3. Participation in WG report preparations
4. Encourage institutional credits for those working on this Strategy
• For people in leadership roles as (sub)conveners and liaisons
• White papers aim to be published
• White paper finding reviewed and referenced in the Strategy report
5. Contribute to the final report in preparation
• Addressing feedback and improving the final draft

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Advisory, Steering, and Observers Committees

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Steering Committee

• Dr. Kétévi Adiklè Assamagan (BNL, USA)
• Prof. Simon Connell (University of Johannesburg, SA)
• Prof. Farida Fassi (Mohammed V University, Morocco)
• Prof. Shaaban Khalil (CFP, Zewail City, Egypt)
• Dr. Fairouz Malek (CNRS and Grenoble Univ., France)

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Observers Committee

Members of this committee are people with experience in long term planning (either senior or junior) but also an outstanding involvement with projects in and with Africa. OC is an intermediate body, conveying ideas between STC and WGs. Members participate in WG discussions, they review papers, attend meetings and participate to the editing of the reports together with the WGs they are assigned to follow. OC members can easily report any Ethics issues or just a problem with the WGs.

Endorsements from national or international organizations

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https://africanphysicsstrategy.org/

Physics strategies

• Physics strategies are regularly developed / updated in other regions
• European strategy
• Snowmass
• LASF4RI
• etc.
• Colleagues in Latin America developed their first grassroots strategy for Research Infrastructures, LASF4RI, in High Energy, Cosmology and Astrophysics
• Folks in Africa came together to develop an inaugural physics strategy at grassroots physicists level—The African Strategy for Fundamental and Applied Physics (ASFAP)
• The final report will be presented at the ASFAP Open Symposium, planned for November 3-7, 2025 at the ICTP

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The African Conference on Fundamental and Applied Physics (ACP)

• One week, integrated in ASP since 2018
• The first ACP tool place in Namibia in July 2018
• Formalized to promote

Participation of African research faculties

Encourage participation of African students not selected for ASP due to budget constraints

International conference open to anyone

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Over 700 registrations in this event

ACP2025 will be held in Togo,

September 14-20, 2025

Summary

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• Number of registrants: 601

• Peak Zoom connections: ~50

• Number of in-person participants: 60

ACP2023 Participation

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• 30 African countries (475)

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• 28 Non-African countries (126)

United States of America (36) Italy (17)

India (16)

France (9)

Germany (6)

United Kingdom (4)

Pakistan (4)

Portugal (4)

Russia (4)

Sweden (3)

Saudi Arabia (2)

Switzerland (2)

Japan (2)

Yemen (1)

China (1)

The Netherlands (1)

Peru (1)

Hungary (1)

Bulgaria (1)

Spain (1)

Bahrain (1)

Poland (1)

Canada (1)

Finland (1)

Greece (1)

Austria (1)

Serbia (1)

Jordan (1)

Iran (1)

Mexico (1)

ACP2023 Registered Participants

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0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

Malawi Eswatini Botswana Zambia

Mozambique Zimbabwe Namibia Madagascar South Africa

Gabon Angola Chad

Congo Brazzaville

Cameroon

Sudan Rwanda Uganda Tanzania Ethiopia Kenya Mauritania Cote d'Ivoire

Burkina Faso

Togo Benin Senegal Ghana Nigeria Tunisia Algeria Egypt Morocco

South (110)

Central (53)

East (67)

West (145)

North (100)

West

South

North

East

Central

50

0

150

100

200

100%

80%

60%

40%

20%

0%

13

ACP2023 Registered Participants

ACP2023 Particitants Professional Standings

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Graduate Students

Remote Participants

Research Faculties

Undergraduates

Post-docs

High School Teachers

Retired

Others

Education Specialist

Administrators

300

250

200

150

100

50

0

100%

90%

80%

70%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%

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Not an accurate representation

September 25, 2023 — media interview

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCxMFTx8Ym4

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September 25, 2023

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September 26, 2023

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Boosting Physics in Africa within the ASFAP Strategy: Particle physics as prototype

The beauty of the Higgs boson

The Physics of a Trillion Degrees

September 26, 2023

Discussion on light source infrastructures in Africa

Inverse Compton Scattering & Light Source Research Infrastructure

September 27, 2023

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Overview of the African School of Physics (ASP) — ACP2023 is an activity / event of ASP

September 27, 2023

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• 2 parallel session of 5-6 talks

• Computing/ Nuclear Physics

• Instrumentation / Detectors/ Physics Education / Quantum Computing

• Plenary talk: The Quest for Physics Beyond the Standard Model

September 28, 2023

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• Togo will host ACP2025 at the University of Lome, September 14-20, 2025

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• A Local Organizing Committee is already formed;

more discussions with the ASP IOC forthcoming

September 28, 2023

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Capturing a quantum image without a camera

Novel probes of dark matter at the LHC

High Performance Computing developments in South Africa:

The Efforts in support of Physics

Workforce development in quantum information science

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Introduction to spintronics: (c.f. Overcoming the skyrmion Hall effect)

September 28, 2023

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Some of the women physicists at ACP2023

The ratio Female : Male in the registration is 4 : 10. There were 601 registrations.

The ratio Female : Male in the in-person attendance is 1 : 2. There were 60 in-person participants.

September 28, 2023 — Poster session; in- person and online

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27 posters were presented

September 28, 2023 — Conference dinner / keynote address

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September 29, 2023

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Collaborative Research in Machine Learning on the African Continent

Cultivating the skills ecosystem of the future

GENDER Equity and Equality in the research area

A look into the physics education system in Zambia and Africa as a whole

Engaging teachers for informal education in modern physics

September 29, 2023 — Special Session “Early Career African Physicists": ASK An ASP (Alumni)”

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ACP2023 organizers and participants

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ASP2024 – Marrakesh, Morocco

• July 7-21, 2024

Conclusion

• ASFAP is the first African physics strategy developed at grassroots by physicists. The ASFAP report will be discussed in the upcoming open symposium, with the final version expected to be released by early 2026. You are invited to attend the open symposium on November 3-7, 2025, https://indico.cern.ch/event/1541442/

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• The African conference on Fundamental and Applied Physics is an activity of the the African School of Physics, designed to support a broader participation of African students and research faculties. The 4^th edition will be in Togo on September 14-20, 2025. Registration is still open, https://indico.cern.ch/event/1458227/

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