Breakthrough discoveries get the headlines, but they rely on a hidden framework of logistics and management. Meet the Nigerian public health researcher whose novel initiative is professionalizing the “science of operations” to ensure African innovation can thrive.

Through her initiative, OpenBench Africa, public health researcher Lotanna Dike is helping African professionals build the skills and structures that keep science thriving, even as global health funding declines. For Dike, advancing African science means doing more than asking big questions. It means building the systems that make answering them possible.

A Nigerian-born public health researcher and program manager, Dike has extensive experience across research sciences and administration. Her research cuts across infectious diseases, sickle cell disease, and implementation science, bridging evidence and practice to strengthen health systems, inform policy, and improve quality of life across diverse and often underserved populations.

She has managed complex, multi-site clinical and global health studies, guided major research portfolios, and built systems to ensure compliance, efficiency, and collaboration. That dual perspective—working both within the science and behind its operations—revealed how essential research management and coordination are to scientific success, yet how often they are undervalued globally.

“Science isn’t just about breakthroughs. It is about the systems that make them possible: grant administration, regulatory oversight, and project coordination,” Dike says. “Without that scaffolding, even the best ideas can falter.”

Building on these experiences, she founded OpenBench Africa, a first-of-its-kind initiative that equips early-career researchers and administrators with the knowledge to run effective and sustainable research. The program provides advanced training in grant development and management, financial stewardship, regulatory compliance, project coordination, and institutional operations, the behind-the-scenes disciplines that keep research functioning. The originality and scope of the initiative have distinguished Dike as one of the field’s emerging leaders and innovators.

Delivered virtually and supported by subject-matter experts from her global network, OpenBench Africa fills a critical gap. By strengthening operational capacity, Dike’s initiative enables African professionals to design, fund, and manage research with greater autonomy and long-term stability.

“African researchers are already producing world-class work,” she explains. “The next step is ensuring that the systems surrounding that work are equally strong, built locally, managed locally, and sustained locally.”

The initiative also shines light on a field that rarely takes centre stage: research operations and management. Many professionals who manage research infrastructure and operations come to the field without a defined path or structured training. Dike’s vision is to change that, positioning research operations as a science on its own, one that requires rigor, foresight, and leadership.

“Research operations is a science on its own,” she says. “It takes method, precision, and design, the same principles that drive discovery itself.”

Her dual impact as a public health researcher whose work extends across sub-Saharan Africa, and as the founder of a movement to professionalize the science of operations, earned her a special jury recognition prize in science from the Future Awards Africa in 2024, one of the continent’s most respected honors for leaders driving innovation and social impact.

Looking ahead, Dike plans to expand OpenBench Africa beyond Nigeria, establishing a mentorship and internship pipeline and securing grant funding to scale the initiative’s reach.

“The future of science in Africa depends on people who can both ask and sustain big questions,” she says. “OpenBench is my contribution to building that foundation.”

Lotanna Dike is a public health researcher, program manager, and founder of OpenBench Africa, an initiative advancing research administration, management, and operational science training across the African continent.