Affiliate to CBSI

Why affiliate to CBSI?

Your research project or programme can affiliate to become part of CBSI. The benefits of affiliation include:

• Being part a major long-term research effort to understand the changing Congo Basin.
• Coordinating your research with others in the region, including via the Observatories.
• Making use of our network to reach the best students from the region.
• Integrating your capacity building activities into a broader capacity plan.
• Attending the CBSI Annual Conferences to integrate with the latest science and translate your science into policy.
• Breaking out of disciplinary silos by connecting with diverse researchers.

How to affiliate to CBSI

Research and capacity building projects and programmes can affiliate to CBSI, if they agree to the following criteria:

• The project aligns with the CBSI Science and Capacity Plan.
• The project includes at least some elements of both research and capacity building.
• The project is funded.
• For projects that are funded from outside of Congo Basin countries¹ there is at least one equal counterpart in a Congo Basin country.
• The lead institution(s) conducting the research and capacity have a not-for-profit status.
• The outputs of the project will be made available following the broad principles of open science, including publishing data (for example, at time of publication, or two years after the end of the project) and manuscripts (this can be self-archiving on institutional websites, or the ArXiv, as well as open access journal articles) and providing links to the datasets and manuscripts for inclusion on the CBSI website.
• The project and its participants contribute to CBSI in some way, such as contributing to the core CBSI running costs. The participants should contribute in some way to achieving the CBSI Science and Capacity Plan, such as reviewing applications for CBSI Scholarships, contributing to the running of the observatories, assisting in applying for further funding, providing training to CBSI students. 
• The project members conform to the CBSI Code of Conduct, including research ethics and physical and psychological safety of participants. 

To discuss affiliating your project or research programme email info@congobasinscience.net. If you are an individual researcher, please join our mailing list to keep up with CBSI developments.

We are currently organising the six CBSI Observatories as part of the CBSI Science and Capacity Plan. The six Observatories will have focal points to allow individual scientists to engage in CBSI related to their specialism, including coordinating existing and future data collection, potential involvement in future development of funding proposals, new analyses of data, and connecting students working in related areas. More information will be available in the coming months.

¹ Congo Basin countries here include countries with humid tropical forest in central Africa: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Republic of the Congo, Cameroon, Central African Republic and Equatorial Guinea.