The Scientific Council’s mission is to provide a long-term prospective vision to help the Steering Committee to set the scientific orientations of the Centre of Excellence, and to evaluate the scientific value of the training and research activities carried out in the Centre. The Scientific Council will supervise the pedagogical engineering, training of trainers and research activities that will be carried out (selection of doctoral students, research partnerships, awarding of grants, validation of teaching programmes). The Scientific Council will be consulted by the Steering Committee on the scientific orientations of the Centre and may make any proposals to the Steering Committee. The choice of members of the Scientific Council (see Table 5) was dictated by the personality and the dimension of the scientific work of the persons as well as their proximity to the ACE’s themes, a desire to guarantee a broad geographical and disciplinary distribution, a good mix of academics and industrialists, the gender aspect, and the presence of English-speaking people.Thus it includes

• Three researchers from North America;
• Three researchers from Europe;
• Five African researchers, including four from Côte d’Ivoire;
• Two representatives of African institutions employing statisticians (CBWAS, AFRISTAT)
• Two representatives of Ivorian institutions employing statisticians (NSO, CGECI)
• A statistical expert working in the private sector in Canada. The Scientific Council will meet twice (2) a year, including once during the end-of-year symposium.
• Working groups may be formed within the Scientific Council to facilitate the follow-up of research activities. The first meetings of the Scientific Council and the Steering Committee will take place in Abidjan in order to allow the members to be confronted with the reality of the field.

Other bodies

An internal audit committee reporting to the Management Board will supervise the ACE activities, by carrying out a monthly review of the activities, in the light of the rules and principles laid down; An internal audit committee reporting to the Management Board will supervise the ACE activities, by carrying out a bi-monthly review of the activities, in the light of the rules and principles laid down. This Committee will also decide on the reports of the Internal Audit Committee.