Nubian Is Rewriting Africa’s Research Future Through Its Digital Repository

Access to contextual African knowledge remains a persistent challenge due to improper research documentation and fragmentation. At the heart of addressing this, Nubian is driving a new vision that is quietly reshaping the future of research. As a community-driven movement using decentralised systems to open up knowledge, Nubian is empowering researchers to rethink how Africa contributes to global scientific and scholarly conversations as they step into a bold new era with a newly unveiled visual identity that reflects its evolving mission.

For this edition of The Radar, we sat with the team behind Nubian Research to explore how they are building tools that democratise knowledge creation—from launching Nubian Research, a blockchain-anchored archive transforming how research is stored and shared, to designing platforms that foster collaboration across disciplines, institutions, and borders.

In our exclusive conversation with Mosadoluwa Fasasi, Founder of Nubian Research, he walked us through the inspiration behind the repository, their mission to support academic and independent researchers, and the misconceptions they’re dismantling about research capacity on the continent.  

What inspired the creation of Nubian Research?

We launched the repository in September 2025 to address the long-standing fragmentation and inaccessibility of contextual research in Africa. While Nubian has always been about increasing our collective knowledge bank and unlocking latent value through decentralised technologies, the product solidified one of our working approaches to the challenge. 

How does the repository work for both researchers and general users?

Before now, it was extremely difficult to find up-to-date contextual studies on the African landscape across different disciplines. Through our repository, researchers are enabled to change that narrative. They can now easily upload, share, and collaborate transdisciplinarily. General users can also browse the list of papers and be at the cutting edge of the latest development.  

In what ways does blockchain technology make the Nubian repository different from traditional research archives?

Traditional archives have done important work over the years, but many of them were built for a different era, an era where information moved slowly, and access was limited to a select few. Blockchain allows us to rethink that model. By anchoring our repository on a decentralised framework, we’re able to ensure that research isn’t just stored, but protected by a distributed network. It introduces a level of transparency that strengthens trust and allows intellectual ownership to remain with the researcher, even as their work becomes more widely accessible.

Why did you choose to focus specifically on supporting academic researchers?

Our focus has always been on people who are rethinking how we think and looking into contextual challenges. Most of them are within the tertiary institutions, and some have moved on from that phase. The common denominator is that they are contributing to how society learns and grows. By creating a space where both academic and independent researchers can share their findings, we are widening the circle of participation. 

What are some common misconceptions about research in Nigeria, and how is Nubian Research helping to address them?

One misconception is that serious research is not happening here. Another is that our researchers lack the capacity to contribute to global conversations. Nubian Research is helping to address this by showing that serious research is happening here through our repository, and also creating spaces, like our Research Jam, where researchers, research institutes, and other stakeholders get to translate these studies into actionable insights. 

What would you say has been your proudest milestone or achievement since launching the Alpha Version?

Barely two months after launching the alpha version, we reached 50 paper uploads. Seeing how quickly this came together affirms that when we provide the right tools and platforms, researchers will step forward and do what they love to do best: look into problems and proffer solutions to them. 

How would you measure Nubian Research’s growth and progress from where it stands today compared to its early days?

I would say we are still in the early days. It’s only been 12 rigorous months since we began operations, and from the get-go, growth for us has always been tied to how well we’re increasing our collective knowledge bank and unlocking the latent value. We are already seeing enthusiasm in this direction with how frequently we get paper uploads, and with some of those papers already leading into products and solutions. But yes, we’re still in the very early days, and there’s much to be done. 

How has working closely with students and young researchers shaped your outlook on the future of science and innovation in Nigeria?

Working with students and young researchers has been both inspiring and instructive. For the larger part, I would say they just need to be enabled. Once you do that, get out of their way. They are internet-native, they learn faster and even beyond their tertiary curriculum. There’s latent talent all around us; we just need to give them more focus and attention, in resources, in policies, and even in bringing them into the conversations. 

What new systems, tools, or platforms are you currently building to make research more open, accessible and collaborative?

We’re introducing a new platform called Dialogues, a series that brings researchers into open conversations about their current work, the questions shaping their studies, and the real-world problems they are addressing. It is a simple but important tool for visibility and for helping the public understand the thinking behind the work and how it concerns them. 

How do you see technology such as blockchain and AI shaping the future of academic research globally?

These technologies have already shaped academic research globally; we are the ones playing catch-up. I do not say that they are the best, but they are already creating alternative paths to make discoveries faster and unlocking value for researchers. Developments such as the tokenisation of intellectual property and AI breakthroughs from companies like Google are accelerating fields such as Mathematics and Life Sciences. Some of them include: 

Mathematics:

• Alphaproof: can solve math Olympiad problems at the silver medal level.
• Co-Scientist: can collaborate with researchers and help them develop and test novel hypotheses.
• AlphaEvolve: can discover new scientific knowledge and speed up AI training itself.

Life Sciences: 

• AMIE Medical: a research system that could help clinicians with medical diagnoses.
• AlphaFold 3: can predict the structure and interactions of all of life’s molecules.
• Isomorphic Labs: builds on AlphaFold to revolutionise the drug discovery process using AI.

Even for these, we’re still in the early days, but the time to discovery and breakthroughs will keep getting shorter. 

What advice would you give to student researchers who are embarking on their first major academic projects?

My advice would be to ask questions that matter. Ideally, this should spike your level of curiosity and get you to embark on a work you’ll be proud of in retrospect. The thing about working this way is that the results of said work eventually open up more. More could be anything from meeting a new collaborator, a funding opportunity, or policy implementation. There are no downsides; it is just a way of setting yourself upwind.

When someone interacts with Nubian Research for the first time, what do you hope they experience or take away?

 I hope they feel a sense of possibility. We want them to see that knowledge is not confined to certain institutions or regions, but that it can be shared, explored, and built upon by anyone willing to engage.

I hope they take away an appreciation for the work of researchers, both academic and independent, and the value of collaboration across disciplines. Above all, I hope they leave inspired to contribute, ask questions, and recognise that access to knowledge is the first step toward innovation, impact, and progress.

Are there plans to expand beyond Nigeria into other African countries or globally?

Interestingly, soon after we launched, we saw uploads from not just Nigeria but other West African countries. On top of that, we saw an upload from Bengaluru, India. We also received contributions from the Arts and Humanities. We didn’t anticipate any of these, but now, it is “forcing” us to rethink our approach. So yes, while we started out with a focus on Nigeria with a thinking of a gradual evolution into other African countries, we are open to co-creating globally and across all disciplines.  

 It’s 2035. What does Nubian Research look like now?

By 2035, I envision Nubian Research as a thriving, interconnected innovation hub. It will be the platform where researchers, students, and independent investigators across Africa and beyond can build contextual solutions and deploy them. I see it as a springboard for informed and educated policy and corporate decision-making. It will also serve as a model for how technology and decentralised systems can empower local talent (especially in underserved regions) while connecting them to global conversations.

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