Strengthening Academic Capacity Along the Flyway: Regional Training Workshop Held in Dakar

On 18-19 November, held under the framework of the Climate Resilient East Atlantic Flyway (CREAF) project, BirdLife International hosted a regional workshop in Dakar, Senegal, bringing together universities, research institutes, and flyway partners to exchange experiences on ornithology, intertidal ecology, and coastal wetland conservation teaching. The event aimed to support long-term scientific capacity along the flyway and explore how academic collaboration could be strengthened.

Participants from eight universities across West Africa shared information about their existing MSc and PhD courses, highlighting both strong foundations and areas where additional support would be valuable. Presentations showed a wide diversity of structures and approaches, while group discussions revealed several shared challenges – particularly limited field-time opportunities for students, gaps in statistics and data management skills, and constraints in adding new modules within existing degree structures.

CREAF’s research and monitoring components were introduced as context for the workshop. Participants noted that the project offers an opportunity to encourage more harmonised training elements but agreed that a single shared MSc module may be difficult to formalise under current university systems. Instead, short courses or a regional “flyway school” emerged as more realistic options, particularly for topics such as data management, field monitoring techniques, sustainability and project management.

Breakout groups examined potential core skills for strengthening ornithology and intertidal ecology training, including species identification, survey design, benthic sampling, GIS, data analysis and interpretation of monitoring results for management. Participants also discussed possible ways of linking university teaching more closely with protected areas, for example through joint field schools, shared supervision, or the exchange of case studies and teaching materials from key flyway sites.

On the second day, the group discussed the idea of establishing an East Atlantic Flyway Academic Network. This discussion focused on what such a network would need to be useful and realistic for busy academics, such as flexible participation, shared resources, and opportunities for supervision support, guest lectures and small-scale exchanges. The group also identified potential funding avenues and pointed out that the network should be simple, practical and based on strengthening existing relationships.

The workshop concluded with agreement to continue developing the concept of an academic network and to explore follow-up steps, including sharing course materials where possible and assessing options for future short courses supported through CREAF and other external funding possibilities.

The Dakar workshop reaffirmed the interest among West African universities in strengthening long-term scientific capacity for flyway conservation and exchange along the flyway. By improving collaboration between academic institutions, site managers and regional partners, Climate Resilient East Atlantic Flyway aims to help support the next generation of conservation scientists and contribute to stronger foundations for monitoring and managing migratory waterbirds and coastal wetlands across the East Atlantic Flyway.