Under the High Patronage of Pr. Remy Magloire ETOUA, Rector of the University of Yaoundé I, the Équipe de Recherche en Mathématiques Appliquées et Sciences Sociales (ERMASS), in collaboration with the École Normale Supérieure of Yaoundé, organized its Fourth Annual Conference from July 28 to 30, 2025, on the theme "Mathematics in the contemporary world", in honor of Professor Nicolas Gabriel Andjiga, a renowned mathematician and game theorist whose contributions have shaped academic thought and inspired generations of researchers.
The conference brought together 100 participants from diverse educational backgrounds and countries, including Cameroon, Senegal, France, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States of America. It examined mathematics' crucial role in addressing today's challenges, including technology, economics, electoral systems, border-related economic issues, and global sustainability. Eight keynote speakers and several invited scholars, working in domains ranging from pure and applied mathematics to economics, game theory, probability and statistics, machine learning, artificial intelligence, literature, and didactics, exchanged state-of-the-art research with participants in their respective domains.
Over two days, the conference featured 40 presentations, divided into plenary and parallel sessions. The plenary sessions allowed researchers in mathematics (in the broadest sense) to demonstrate to the public mathematics' current or potential contributions to solving social, economic, sociological, border, environmental, and political problems. Meanwhile, the parallel sessions focused on advances in mathematics and their applications. Experts from each field presented their research updates to a panel of specialists.
The Conference hosted the following keynote lectures:
Lecture I: On the limit of electoral systems, by Nicolas Gabriel Andjiga, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Yaoundé I in Cameroon.
Lecture II: The Bayesian Contract Curve: Stable Risk-Sharing under Incomplete Information, by Roland Pongou, Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa.
Lecture III: The Hidden Curse of French Inter-communal Power by Vincent Merlin, Professor of Economics at Université de Caen Normandie.
Lecture IV: On the usefulness of the so-called “useless knowledge”: Some practical examples in mathematical sciences, by Mama Foupouagnigni, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Yaoundé I and Director of AIMS Cameroon.
Lecture V: The Nash Equilibrium as a Tool for Managing Public Economic Governance, by Lawrence DIFFO LAMBO, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Yaoundé I.
Lecture VI: Mathematical Modeling and Social Issues, by Jean-Jules TEWA, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Yaoundé I.
Lecture VII: The foundations of statistical research: principles, methods and issues, by Patrice Takam Soh, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Yaoundé I.
Lecture VIII: A note on defuzzification of fuzzy pre-orders and transitivity of its minimal regular strict component, by Siméon FOTSO, Professor of Mathematics at the École Normale Supérieure of Yaoundé.
Three speakers also discuss border issues and call for collaboration to use mathematics to transform this field, as well as an opportunity to attend the 8th International Conference of Border Studies, hosted by H. Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico, and the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in Edinburg in 2026. The three invited talks on the border included “non-entry policies, border relocation and the commodification of humans”, by Etienne-Marie Lassi from the University of Manitoba in Canada; “frontier: reconstruction of intelligibility,” by Mebometa Ndongo from the University of Ottawa; and “the border economic project,” by Jean-Baptiste Tondji from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.
The conference concluded on July 30, 2025, with a special academic tribute ceremony honoring Professor Nicolas Gabriel Andjiga. This is the third time ERMASS has organized such a scholarly tribute to honor one of its co-founders and scholars, who has made tremendous contributions to supporting students and early-career faculty and to advancing game theory and applied mathematics to address societal issues in Cameroon and beyond. To sustain its founders' work, ERMASS introduced, for the first time in Cameroon, the Andjiga-Diffo-Moulen Prize. This annual prize aims to promote fundamental research and the practical application of mathematics to address pressing social challenges in Africa and to recognize and encourage outstanding contributions to research and development support.
Our partners' generous support made the success of the ERMASS 2025 Conference possible. We are grateful to:
The University of Yaoundé I (UYI) and the École Normale Supérieure of Yaoundé (ENSY) in Cameroon.
The Robert C. Vackar College of Business and Entrepreneurship at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, The Center for Border Economic Studies (CBEST), and the International Study Program (ISP) at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in the United States of America.
African Institute for Mathematical Science (AIMS) Cameroon in Limbe.
The University of Paris 8 in France
CY Cergy Paris Université in France
Institut Universitaire Saint Jean in Cameroon
Kenby Natural Sarl in Cameroon
Orange Cameroon
We're very thankful and look forward to working together in the future. The program details, along with all event pictures and videos, will be available on the ERMASS Conference 2025 website. We welcome any questions or opportunities for next year's edition.