ABSTRACT Growing Data-science Research in Africa to Stimulate Progress (GRASP) Efforts to address the increasing burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in Africa have been hugely impaired by the vast deficit of sustainable & indigenous research capacities & adequately qualified personnel vital for articulating personalized, context-specific interventions for African populations. Neurological disorders are a leading NCD cause of death and disability. Brain health, which determines brain capital, is central to achieving overall health and all sustainable development goals. However, the current DS-I Africa programs do not have a dedicated training program in brain health research to unravel its determinants, especially sociodemographic and lifestyle factors which play a major role elsewhere. GRASP is aimed at developing a sustainable cohort of scientists to tackle the brain health burden by improving the data science skill of selected African scholars to unravel sociodemographic determinants and dietary & lifestyle factors affecting brain health & cardiovascular risk using the SIREN, ARISES, CHAIR, & other relevant datasets in H3Africa & DS-I Africa consortia and beyond. This will include integrating sociodemographic data with cognitive, neuroimaging, genomics, climate & geographical data, in mentored research projects & consortia-related activities in a multidisciplinary team of five selected researchers-in-training & their elite mentors annually for three years. GRASP will increase the scholars' scientific knowledge, professional skills, motivation, & credentials in the field of translational data science research with a specific focus on Brain health with emphasis on identifying sociodemographic determinants and other markers and patterns in data from genomics, brain imaging, Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping & public health data. The training comprises a 9-month Postgraduate Certificate program that will include six (6) months of online training activities & a compulsory six (6) weeks intensive residency at the University of Ibadan (UI), Nigeria and a research project. Mentoring will be enhanced via mentor matching (content & analytic area) & peer mentoring networks. Each scholar in the Postgraduate Certificate program will be assigned to a mentor/supervisor (preferably a faculty member of the training or host institutions & mentoring will take place online or face-to-face based on the mentor/mentee preference).The effectiveness of GRASP will be monitored based on Scholar academic positions & publications; and funding for investigator-initiated research projects or career development awards. 1

NARRATIVE Brain health, which determines brain capital, is central to achieving overall health and all sustainable development goals. However, the current DS-I Africa programs do not have a dedicated training program in brain health research to unravel its determinants, especially sociodemographic and lifestyle factors which play a major role elsewhere. GRASP is aimed at developing a sustainable cohort of African scientists to tackle the brain health burden in Africa by improving the data science skill of selected scholars to unravel its determinants using available large integrated datasets within DSI-A network. 1