With mathematics and statistics as a foundation

Project title: PhD programme in Mathematical and Statistical Sciences.

Background

Mathematical and statistical sciences provide a base for modern applications and research in a large variety of disciplines ranging from medicine through geoscience to economics. Any society needs teachers and researchers competent in these sciences, to be able to build a solid foundation for other sciences. It is also important that a country has a pool of well equipped researchers to contribute to research that can find solutions to issues the country is struggling with.

The project

The project aims at developing a School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences at Hawassa University in Ethiopia as a complete university department of international standard. The School should upon completion have established broad MSc and PhD programmes supported by research activities by the department faculty members. Currently in Ethiopia, there exists no such mathematical science department.

The planned PhD programme will have four research topics – Mathematical and Numerical Modelling, Optimization and Logistics, Medical Statistics and Epidemiology and Computational and Spatio-temporal Statistics. The research is concentrated within these four disciplines to that ensure the new school has research capacity beyond critical mass.

The project will also continue to focus on the Master Degree in mathematical science which was established under the previous NOMA-programme. A special focus here is to recruit female students, and by doing this building up qualified women who can later apply to the male-dominated field of PhD-programme in mathematical and statistical sciences.

Overall goal

The project will establish a robust, modern mathematical science department at an international level at Hawassa University, that provides MSc-candidates for the Ethiopian society – the educational sector in particular – and PhD-candidates from selected mathematical science disciplines which supports university education and research in other sciences important for Ethiopia.