Recherche et développement dans les colonies portugaises d’Afrique: L’impulsion de la coopération scientifique interimpériale (1950-1962)

Claudia Castelo

doi:10.51185/journals/rhca.2022.0303

Authors

Claudia Castelo Institut of social science, University of Lisbonne (Portugal)

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.51185/journals/rhca.2022.0303

Keywords:

Africa, development, inter-imperial cooperation, Portuguese colonial empire, science

Abstract

The article analyses the impact of the collaboration between the colonial powers present in Southern Africa on the Portuguese scientific field. I argue that, since 1950, Portugal’s participation in the Commission for Technical Cooperation in Africa South of the Sahara (CCTA) and in its advisory body, the African Scientific Council (CSA), was decisive in the evolution of the scientific policy for the Portuguese colonies, lead to the creation of several research organizations and the training of specialists, accelerated the institutionalization of scientific research institutes in Angola and Mozambique and opened up new employment opportunities for scientists and technicians in the metropole and colonial territories. Trans-imperial cooperation was, in the Portuguese case, a mechanism to rapidly induce the expansion and strengthening of the national scientific community, confronted with its own weaknesses and constraints, with effects beyond Portugal’s departure from the CCTA in 1962.

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