For long, uncertainty over scholarships and lack of access to information have slowed down doctoral students and researchers in Africa, and in many cases led them to abandon their theses altogether.

Many experts believe that the high dropout from doctoral programmes represent a massive loss of scientific potential for the continent.

To bridge the gap, a Moroccan startup has launched a digital platform to help those enrolled in doctoral programmes to access scholarships, build networks and receive research support.

The PhiDoc platform, as it is called, was launched on September 16, which coincides with the International Day of Science, Technology and Innovation for the South - a day proclaimed by the UN to celebrate the role that science, technology and innovation play in advancing development across the Global South.

The relevance of the platform was highlighted in a research conducted in 2023-2024. Based on a sample of 40,000 students enrolled in doctoral programmes, a significantly low number finished their theses, many citing lack of both quantitative and qualitative information for dropping out.

PhiDoc aims to fill the information gap, besides addressing supervision of doctoral students, as well as scholarship-related problems.

How it started

In 2025, Oussama Elasri, then a PhD researcher in management sciences at Cadi Ayyad University, discovered an Erasmus+ scholarship opportunity only a day after the application deadline had passed.

Disappointed and overcome with guilt, Elasri began keeping a spreadsheet of all the calls for applications he could find, which he shared with his colleagues, who in turn shared them with their own networks. That’s how the idea to create PhiDoc was born.

“The work produced by Moroccan researchers isn’t the problem. It’s the infrastructure surrounding that work that is,” says Elasri, founder of PhiDoc.

“A researcher in Marrakech and a researcher in Lyon may have exactly the same idea; only one of the two will hear about the call for proposals that will fund it in time. This gap has nothing to do with talent, and it’s the least costly to bridge,” he adds.

Researchers on the platform can use it to map out their dissertations by phases and milestones, receive calls for funding and conference submissions filtered by their discipline and career stage, and consult a directory of Moroccan researchers—both in Morocco and abroad—to identify collaborators.

How does it work?

A research assistant answers questions about methodology and writing. Those conducting quantitative or qualitative research can recruit participants from within the community through a reciprocal system, rather than reaching out to strangers on social media groups.

There is also a mentoring program. In fact, professors—particularly those from the Moroccan diaspora—can sign up as mentors and upon request be connected with doctoral students with the sessions tracked within the platform.

This initiative embodies an African response to the challenge of brain drain: reversing the flow by creating opportunities for remote collaboration and knowledge transfer between researchers on the continent and those in the diaspora.

"According to the United Nations, high-income countries account for 77% of global research and development spending, while low-income countries account for 0.3%. The gap is the same from Casablanca to Dakar, from Tunis to Dubai: it’s not that there’s a shortage of researchers; it’s what connects them,” adds Elasri.

PhiDoc plans to expand its platform to the African continent and then to the Middle East and North Africa after its first year of operation in Morocco.

The platform is French and English and registration is open to doctoral students, early-career researchers and professors. Institutional access is available to doctoral programs, research laboratories and partner universities.