Training the Trainers: Community-Led Bioinformatics Training with Bioconductor Across Africa

Community-led training, local instructor development, and open educational resources are increasingly important for sustaining computational research capacity and reproducible analysis practices in under-resourced settings. Through Bioconductor, an open-source research software ecosystem for biological data analysis, training activities across Africa have focused not only on introducing researchers to bioinformatics workflows but also on supporting local teaching capacity and creating pathways for continued skills development. Although high-throughput sequencing technologies are increasingly used across Africa, access to structured and advanced bioinformatics training remains limited, restricting the adoption of reproducible genomic analysis workflows across many institutions. Through a Chan Zuckerberg Initiative-funded project, Bioconductor expanded coordinated bioinformatics training activities across East and West Africa in 2025. Three intensive in-person workshops were delivered in Nairobi (Kenya), Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), and Abomey-Calavi (Benin), training 83 researchers from universities, national research institutes, and biotechnology organisations. The workshops provided hands-on training in R, reproducible research practices, SummarizedExperiment, and bulk RNA-seq analysis using DESeq2. Training combined structured instruction with practical exercises and concluded with a “Bring-Your-Own-Data” day, where participants applied newly acquired skills directly to their own datasets. Evaluations across the workshops showed strong improvements in R proficiency, high satisfaction with the training, and strong interest in future Bioconductor activities. In Benin, French-language instructional support and translated materials improved accessibility within a multilingual research environment. Alongside participant training, six African researchers completed Carpentries instructor certification, strengthening local capacity to sustain future training activities. Participants across all workshop sites expressed strong interest in advanced topics including single-cell transcriptomics, population genomics and GWAS, metagenomics, CRISPR applications, multi-omics integration, and workflow management. To begin addressing this need, Bioconductor delivered an introductory seminar on the Bioconductor ecosystem for researchers and RSEs across Africa, alongside a microbiome analysis seminar series introducing participants to microbiome data science using Bioconductor tools and reproducible analysis practices. Bioconductor also began developing a specialised training roadmap for 2026–2027, including online seminars, advanced workshops co-designed with regional partners, and clearer pathways linking introductory and advanced training. These approaches may also be useful for similar capacity-building efforts in other regions where access to advanced bioinformatics and research software training remains limited.