Our history

The idea of creating a Center was born in 2008, when the Head of the Center was awarded the Reimar Lüst Prize by the prestigious Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. While the Reimar Lüst Prize is awarded by the Humboldt Foundation, it is financed by the Thyssen Foundation. The Thyssen Foundation explains to the winner that, while the Prize is the crowning achievement of a scientific career, it is not the end of it, but the possibility of a new beginning. For the Thyssen Foundation, the Prize should therefore be the beginning of an activity to promote science. Faced with this exhortation to propose new projects that the Thyssen Foundation can help realize, Professor Simo explains that he was inspired by existing models and submitted to the said Foundation a Project for the creation of a Research Center with headquarters in Yaoundé, a few months later he received an agreement in principle from the Thyssen Foundation. In view of the infrastructural problems specific to the African context, the Foundation agreed to finance the construction of the center. In 2010, the German side gave its final agreement to finance the Center. With the agreement of the Rector of the University of Yaoundé 1 and the Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences to host the Center, it is now firmly established.

He also thanked the university authorities, notably the Rector of the University of Yaoundé 1, the Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Letters and Humanities, and the Infrastructure Department for their commitment, without which this project would never have seen the light of day. In January 2011, the building construction project got off to a flying start with the successful completion of fund transfer mechanisms facilitated by the German Embassy in Cameroon. Since mid-January, the building has been under construction and will be delivered in 6 months.

As the Center is not an administrative center, but a scientific one, the effective start of its activity cannot depend on the completion of the construction of its headquarters. Consequently, its effective existence takes effect with the letter from the Rector to the Dean of the FALSH (June 2010), authorizing him to host the Center, and it must start operating immediately. The meeting of the Scientific Advisory Board is part of this drive to make the center's operations effective.