The creator of the ghost summit of Nobel winners also made up a research center in Africa

The story made it into newspapers such as Spain’s La Vanguardia on May 6. The Science Diplomacy Center for Africa had just been inaugurated in Kigali (Rwanda), an ambitious institution promoted by the Barcelona association SciTech DiploHub together with the city governments of Barcelona and the Rwandan capital, as well as the Network of African Science Academies (NASAC) and the Association of African Universities. The press release sent by the Spanish entity included statements by the executive director of NASAC, Jackie Kado, who expressed her “pride” at being able to work with SciTech DiploHub. In the photo distributed to the media she appeared next to Alexis Roig, the executive director of SciTech DiploHub, “during the presentation ceremony” of the center in Kigali. It was all a fabrication.

“It is disturbing,” says Jackie Kado. “I was never there for the launch of the Science Diplomacy Center for Africa. I never made the statement bearing my name either. I do not even know if the Center exists.” Kado met Alexis Roig on May 1 at a conference in Kigali about the use of science as a tool for cooperation between cities. That was all. On May 6, however, SciTech DiploHub sent a press release to the media announcing the opening of “a research center in the heart of Africa” with “an unprecedented investment of three million euros” thanks to funds from the European Commission. Kado declares herself “shocked by these blatant falsehoods.”

Alexis Roig founded the SciTech DiploHub association in Barcelona in 2018, with the aim of establishing scientific links with other cities and organizations. One person who worked with him from the start describes him as “a megalomaniac with a spectacular imagination” who hyperbolically exaggerated his own achievements from the beginning, causing several of his collaborators, most of whom were very young and unpaid, to walk away from the project. In 2020, the city of Barcelona granted him a direct subsidy of €120,000 for the international economic promotion of the Catalan capital as a city of science and innovation, until 2023. On July 10, SciTech DiploHub sent out a news release alleging it had organized a world summit in Barcelona with 1,300 global leaders, ministers and Nobel Prize winners — an event that never took place.

In its statement about the new center in Kigali, Alexis Roig’s association proclaimed that it was “the largest investment in scientific cooperation with Africa ever made from Spain.” A spokesperson for the European Commission says that it has no record of European funds being allocated to this alleged center. Emma Claudine Ntirenganya, Director General of Communications at the Kigali City Council, denies that the Rwandan capital had anything to do with this alleged project. “There is no collaboration between the Kigali City Council and SciTech DiploHub,” she insisted.

The news has shocked local authorities. The lawyer Kayihura Muganga Didas, Acting Vice Chancellor of the University of Rwanda and chairperson of the Kigali City Council, replies bluntly: “I know nothing about this center.” The head of the Association of African Universities, Olusola Oyewole, also said that “it is false” that his organization is involved in this alleged project.

The Barcelona City Council has not participated in this project and it did not know anything about it

Pau Solanilla, former chief of international relations for the City of Barcelona

Alexis Roig was one of many speakers at the annual conference of the International Network for Governmental Science Advice in Kigali in early May, where he allegedly announced the launch of the new Science Diplomacy Center for Africa. Daan du Toit, Director General of Science and Innovation for the South African government, was also at the conference. “I don’t know anything about this center, other than the media statement [sent by SciTech DiploHub], which I saw after the Kigali meeting (which I attended, but I only saw the statement afterwards). All I can say for certain is that the South African Government is not involved,” says Du Toit. The fact that he knows nothing about it is particularly significant because his team is promoting a similar but genuine initiative: the Science Diplomacy Capital for Africa, in Pretoria.

Until a few weeks ago, Pau Solanilla was in charge of International Relations at Barcelona City Council. He recalls that on May 2 he received a message from Alexis Roig, informing him that SciTech DiploHub had “closed a super cool deal” with the city of Kigali, the Network of African Science Academies and the Association of African Universities, to open a science diplomacy center co-directed from Barcelona. Roig asked him for a statement of support and Solanilla sent him some generic phrases, in the vein of “scientific and technological diplomacy is a central tool for the external activities of Barcelona and Spain.”

On May 6, Solanilla came across the news that the Barcelona City Council had inaugurated the Science Diplomacy Center for Africa in Kigali that same day. “The Barcelona City Council has not participated in this project and it did not know anything about it,” Solanilla emphasizes. An official spokesperson states that “at this time” the council “has no relationship” with SciTech DiploHub or with Alexis Roig, who, nevertheless, presents himself as “Barcelona’s chief Science and Tech Envoy.”

On Wednesday and Thursday, this newspaper asked Roig for some proof of the existence of the Science Diplomacy Center for Africa, but received no response to the messages sent through WhatsApp. The executive director of SciTech DiploHub did speak to EL PAÍS for 20 minutes by phone on July 23, to discuss the alleged world summit held in Barcelona days before with 1,300 global leaders, including ministers, Nobel Prize winners and the Jordanian princess Sumaya bint Hassan, President of the Royal Scientific Society of her country. Roig was not able to provide any names of those alleged attendees.

—Was the princess of Jordan there?

—Yeah.

—Was she there in person?

—No, she participated through video conference.

Faris Alsaka, Princess Sumaya bint El Hassan’s assistant, told EL PAÍS that the royal received an invitation to participate in an event in Barcelona and declined. “Her Royal Highness did not participate, neither in person nor via webcam.”

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