ERAfrica is funded under FP7Project number: FP-226154 I Programme: Capacities I Instrument: Coordination Actionhttp://www.erafrica.eu

ERAfrica New Knowledge Partnerships

10.7 Million €106 Eligible Proposals

Interfacing Challenges

New Knowledge Partnerships

Renewable EnergiesNew Ideas

15 Funding Countries

“New Knowledge Partnerships“ - the slogan of ERAfrica points out its central message: Africa and Europe acting as equal partners in a new approach towards joint funding in S&T. ERAfrica aims to serve as a model for future cooperative ventures between Africa and Europe and offers a new opportunity for joint research and innovation part-nerships.

On January 15, 2013, Funding Parties from 15 African and European countries launched a joint call for collaborative activities in three thematic fields and in three types of collaborative activities:

Renewable Energies: funding projects addressing renewable energy topics.

Interfacing Challenges: funding projects which are conduct-ed at the interface of key societal challenges where African and European collaboration stands to have added value.

New Ideas: funding outstanding idea-driven projects gener-ated in a bottom-up approach, where the emphasis is placed on clearly evidenced originality and novelty of the idea, ap-proach or expected outputs.

Collaborative Research: joint undertakings by consortia de-signed to produce new knowledge through scientific research.

Collaborative Innovation: joint undertakings by consortia designed to bridge the gap between the outcomes of research projects and commercialisation.

Capacity Building: joint undertakings by consortia designed to assist relevant organisations to improve their capacities and/or their enabling environment for research and inno-vation.

ERAfrica generates great interest in the research community and meets its aim of promoting equal partnerships.

The Joint Call – A First Appraisal

With a total amount of € 10.7 Million available for funding, the call generated 124 proposals of which 106 eligible proposals involving 560 organizations requested an amount of € 64.8 Million (call clo-sed on April 15, 2013).

Projects are yet to be selected for funding but with the close of the call it is already possible to see how the research community respon-ded to what the joint call set out to achieve.

The statistics of the submitted proposals provide a valuable picture of the research community’s response. First, the important role of project coordinator is equally designated to African as to European institutions, with a slight difference between themes; more propo-sals have African coordinating institutions in the Renewable Energy theme whereas the opposite is the case in the New Ideas theme.

Roughly half of the proposals request funds for Collaborative Rese-arch activities, with the other half split between Capacity Building and Innovation Activities. The size of proposed projects, in terms of amount of funding requested, do not differ between the three types of collaborative activities or between the three themes. More import-antly, across all categories and regardless of how many organizations make up the consortia, designated coordinating institutions are equally often from African as from European countries.

The emerging overall picture shows that ERAfrica indeed lives up to its aim of true partnerships. The final and decisive step will be to assess the quality of funded projects in terms of outcomes.

Finland

GermanyBelgium

France

Switzerland

Austria

SpainTurkey

Egypt

Kenya

South Africa

Portugal

The Beginning – The Consortium Austria KEF/OeAD – Commission for Development Research at the Austrian

Agency for International Cooperation in Education and Research

Belgium CIUF/CUD – Inter-university Council of the French Community of Belgium/University Commission for Development

Egypt MHESR – Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research

Finland TEM – Finnish Ministry of Employment and the Economy

France IRD – Institut de recherche pour le developpement (Coordinating Institution)

Germany PT– DLR – International Bureau of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research & BMBF – Federal Ministry of Education and Research

Kenya MOST-KE – The Ministry of Higher Education Science and Technology

Portugal FCT – Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education – Foundation for Science and Technology

South Africa DST – Department of Science and Technology

Spain MICINN – Ministry of Science and Innovation

Switzerland SNSF – Swiss National Science Foundation

Turkey TÜBITAK – The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey

Finland

GermanyBelgiumNetherlands

France

Switzerland

Austria

Turkey

Egypt

Burkina Faso

Cote D‘Ivoire

Kenya

South Africa

Norway

Portugal

The Call – The Funding PartiesAustria BMWF – Austrian Federal Ministry of Science and Research

Belgium BELSPO – Federal Science Policy Office & CIUF/CUD – Inter-university Council of the French Community of Belgium/University Commission for Development & FNRS – Fund for Scientific Research & FWO – Research Foundation – Flanders

Burkina Faso Ministère de la Recherche Scientifique et de l’Innovation

Côte-d’Ivoire PASRES – Strategic Support Program for Scientific Research in Côte-d’Ivoire

Egypt STDF – Science and Technology Development Fund

Finland Academy of Finland TEM & Finnish Cultural Foundation & TEKES – Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation

France IRD – Institut de recherche pour le developpement (Coordinating Institution)

Germany BMBF – International Bureau IB of the Federal Ministry for Education and Research in Germany (Common Call Management: PT- DLR – International Bureau of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research)

Kenya The Ministry of Higher Education Science and Technology

The Netherlands NWO-WOTRO – Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research – Science for Global Development

Norway The Research Council of Norway

Portugal FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology – Ministry of Education and Science International Relations Department

South Africa DST – Department of Science and Technology

Switzerland SNSF – Swiss National Science Foundation

Turkey TÜBITAK – The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey

Norway

Finland

Germany

Netherlands

Belgium

France

Switzerland

Austria

Portugal

Turkey

Egypt

Burkina Faso

Cote D‘Ivoire

Kenya

South Africa

The Call – The Themes Renewable Energies

Belgium: FWO – Research Foundation – Flanders EUR 200,000Burkina Faso: Ministère de la Recherche Scientifique et de l’Innovation EUR 100,000Cote D‘Ivoire: PASRES – Strategic Support Program for Scientific Research in Côte-d’Ivoire

EUR 100,000Egypt: STDF – Science and Technology Development Fund EUR 500,000Finland: TEKES – Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation

EUR 1,000,000Kenya: The Ministry of Higher Education Science and Technology EUR 300,000Norway: The Research Council of Norway EUR 400,000South Africa: DST – Department of Science and Technology EUR 300,000Turkey: TÜBITAK – The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey

EUR 300,000

New IdeasBelgium: CUD EUR 100,000, BELSPO EUR 75,000, FWO EUR 200,000 / EUR 375,000Cote D‘Ivoire: PASRES – Strategic Support Program for Scientific Research in Côte-d’Ivoire

EUR 45,000France: IRD – Institut de recherche pour le developpement EUR 50,000Germany: BMBF – International Bureau (IB) of the Federal Ministry for Education and

Research in Germany EUR 400,000Kenya: The Ministry of Higher Education Science and Technology EUR 400,000South Africa: DST – Department of Science and Technology EUR 300,000Switzerland: SNSF – Swiss National Science Foundation EUR 500,000Turkey: TÜBITAK – The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey

EUR 300,000

Interfacing ChallengesAustria: BMWF – Austrian Federal Ministry of Science and Research EUR 200,000Belgium: BELSPO EUR 75,000, FWO EUR 200,000, FNRS EUR 100,000 / EUR 375,000Burkina Faso: Ministère de la Recherche Scientifique et de l’Innovation EUR 55,000Cote D‘Ivoire: PASRES – Strategic Support Program for Scientific Research in Côte-d’Ivoire

EUR 500,000Egypt: STDF – Science and Technology Development Fund EUR 300,000Finland: Finnish Cultural Foundation EUR 150.000, Academy of Finland EUR

150,000 / EUR 300,000France: IRD – Institut de recherche pour le developpement EUR 950,000Germany: BMBF – International Bureau (IB) of the Federal Ministry for Education and

Research in Germany EUR 800,000Kenya: The Ministry of Higher Education Science and Technology EUR 500,000Netherlands: NWO-WOTRO – Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research – Science

for Global Development EUR 250,000Portugal: FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology – Ministry of Education and

Science International Relations Department EUR 200,000South Africa: DST – Department of Science and Technology EUR 400,000Turkey: TÜBITAK – The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey

EUR 300,000

Requested and available funds by theme

Funds requested by continent of origin of coordinating institution

Mill

ion

Euro

s

60

40

20

0

10,7

3,2 2,4

64,8

9,9 8,8

AvailableRequested

New ideasRenewableEnergies

Total

5,1

46,2

Interfacing challenges

Funds requested900.000-2.000.000600.000-900.000300.000-600.0000-300.000

Coun

t

60

50

40

30

20

10

0

88

28

7

1314

24

4

EuropeAfrica

Continent of origin ofcoordinating institution

Continent of origin of coordinating institution by funds requested and theme

Continent of origin of coordinating institution by funds requested and collaborative activity

900.000-2.000.000

600.000-900.000

300.000-600.000

0-300.000

Coun

t

40

30

20

10

0 900.000-2.000.000

600.000-900.000

300.000-600.000

0-300.000

Interfacing challengesRenewable Energies

900.000-2.000.000

600.000-900.000

300.000-600.000

0-300.000

New ideas

Europe

Africa

Continent of origin ofcoordinating institution

Funds requested

Africa

Funds requested

Europe

Continent of origin ofcoordinating institution

900.000-2.000.000

600.000-900.000

300.000-600.000

0-300.000

Coun

t

20

15

10

5

0

900.000-2.000.000

600.000-900.000

300.000-600.000

0-300.000

900.000-2.000.000

600.000-900.000

300.000-600.000

0-300.000

Type of collaborative activity

Innovation projectCapacity building

projectCollaborative

research project

Continent of origin of coordinating institution by consortium size

Type of collaborative activity by theme

number of participating organizations10987654

Coun

t

50

40

30

20

10

03

total3

1 1

total2

25

7

1719

4

4

6

14

23

EuropeAfrica

Continent of origin ofcoordinating institution

total31

total13

total9

total6

total42

Interfacing challengesRenewable Energies

Coun

t

80

60

40

20

0

17

3

24

34

8

total13

total75

Innovation project

Capacity building project

Collaborative research project

Type of collaborative activity

New ideas

8

4

6

total18

99

211

4 11

136

277

14

24

4 1 4 16

23

112

7

141

10 10

14

3 7 0

50

100

150

200

250

300

EuropeAfrica

Publicresearch

institution

Privateresearch

institution

Highereducationinstitution

Non-universityresearch

establishment

Small andmedium

enterprise

Enterprise Furtherorganization

Continent of origin of coordinating institution by type of organization

Imprint:

KEF - Commission for Development Research at the OeAD-GmbH (Office)Ebendorferstrasse 71010 Vienna

Editors: Dr. Mattias Larsen, mattias.larsen@oead.atMatthias Weissgram, matthias.weissgram@oead.at

Graphic design: Urban Grünfelder, Peter SachartschenkoERAfrica is funded under FP7Project number: FP-226154Programme: CapacitiesInstrument: Coordination Action

The ERA-Net with Africa “ERAfrica” localizes its activities within the framework of the Africa – EU Joint Strategy. It supports the implementation of the 8th Partnership, and more specifically, the second priority of this Partnership, which is “to support S&T Capacity Building in Africa and implement Africa’s Science and Technology Consolidated Plan of Action”.

The sole responsibility for the content of of this publication lies with the authors and does not representthe opinion of the European Union. Neither the authors nor the European Union are liable for any use made thereof.