Training the Trainers: Community-led bioinformatics training with Bioconductor across Africa 146

Community-led training, local instructor development, and open educational resources are increasingly vital for sustaining computational research capacity in under-resourced settings. Through Bioconductor, an open-source research software ecosystem for biological data analysis, training activities across Africa have focused on both introducing researchers to bioinformatics workflows and building local teaching capacity for long-term skills development. In 2025, Bioconductor delivered three in-person workshops in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Benin, providing hands-on training in R programming, reproducible workflows, and bulk RNA-seq analysis to 83 researchers. Evaluations showed strong skill gains, while French-translated materials and newly Carpentries-certified local instructors improved accessibility and strengthened regional capacity. These instructors, alongside expanded online delivery, will help sustain and scale training beyond the workshops themselves. Participants across all training sites expressed interest in more advanced topics, including single-cell analysis, metagenomics, CRISPR analysis, and workflow management, pointing to a growing need for specialised training and longer-term engagement with research software and reproducible workflows. To begin addressing this need, Bioconductor delivered an introductory seminar on its ecosystem to help researchers and RSEs across Africa engage with available tools and infrastructure, and a microbiome analysis series that introduced participants to using Bioconductor tools for research. Building on this, Bioconductor is developing a specialised training roadmap for 2026-2027, including online seminars led by package authors, a pilot advanced workshop co-designed with regional partners focusing on metagenomics in Addis Ababa, and clearer pathways for more advanced training. These approaches may inform similar capacity-building efforts in other regions where access to advanced bioinformatics training remains limited.