Europe-Africa Research & Innovation News.
n°9 – April 2014.
[Delegation of the European Union to the African Union].
In this edition:
- Call for EU-SA Twinning Activities in Marine Sciences and Raw Materials
- ERAfrica announces outcome of first call
- Engaging SME's in EU-Africa STI Research Cooperation
- Round table: Innovation serving food and nutrition security in Europe and Africa
- 4th EU-Africa Summit declaration recognises importance of research and STI
- African and European representation in EDCTP 2
- AMCOST approves STISA-2024, ASRIC, AOSTI & PAIPO
- Working Group on STI for food & nutrition security and sustainable agriculture
- Showcasing African research capacities & Africa-EU collaboration in ICT
Call for EU-SA Twinning Activities in Marine Sciences and Raw Materials
March 2014 – Brussels/Pretoria: ESASTAP Plus has announced a call for twinning activities between EU and South African partners, intended to intensify S&T collaboration in a few selected areas. The objective of this call is to establish long-term, institutional cooperation and reach a new level of partnership by strengthening a number of strategic alliances between South African and European groups. "The activity is a targeted intervention to foster relationships which have potential to grow and that may also act as precursors for larger projects and in particular for future applications to Horizon 2020." Applications must be made using the template and jointly delivered electronically on behalf of (at least) one EU and one South African institution. Deadline for submission: 7 May 2014.
See call text: www.esastap.org.za/download/twinning_call_2014.pdf
Further information and electronic applications: twinning@esastap.org.za
ERAfrica announces outcome of first call for proposals
March 2014 - 17 projects were selected out of 124 received in the areas of ‘Renewable Energies', ‘Interfacing Challenges' and ‘New Ideas'. These collaborative research projects involve 4–10 partners fairly evenly from Africa and Europe. Developed with EU support through FP7, ERAfrica is a new model to pool funding from 15 African and European countries, which mobilised €10.7m for this first call.
For more, see: www.erafrica.eu/_media/ERAfrica_the_call_web.pdf
Engaging SME's in EU-Africa STI Research Cooperation – stakeholder's workshop
31 March 2014 – Brussels: The Finnish University Partnership for International Development (UniPID) held a stakeholder's workshop on EU-Africa STI Research Partnerships targeting researchers, private sector and policy makers. It was organised in cooperation with the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, ESASTAP Plus and PAEPARD (Platform for African-European partnership on Agricultural Research for Development) at the occasion of the 4th EU-Africa Summit.
Further information: www.esastap.org.za/download/unipid_2014_programme.pdf
Round table: Innovation serving food and nutrition security in Europe and Africa
1 April 2014 – Brussels: Held in the framework of the EU-Africa Business Forum and EU-Africa Summit, this roundtable was a closed event intended "to articulate a set of high-level, core messages to the EU-Africa Summit about the role of and conditions for private sector engagement in the food and nutrition security research and innovation partnership."
Contact: Nienke Buisman, DG Research & Innovation, European Commission (nienke.buisman@ec.europa.eu)
4th EU-Africa Summit declaration recognises importance of research and STI
2-3 April 2014 – Brussels: at the EU-Africa Summit, Heads of State and Government of the European Union and Africa reaffirmed their "commitment to the objectives set out in the Joint Africa-EU Strategy" (Lisbon, 2007) and took note of the very real progress made. In the final declaration, European and African leaders referred to cooperation in research and innovation: “We recognise that investment in research, science, technology and innovation is fundamental to achieve those objectives in particular, and to sustainable development of our societies in general. With this in mind, we welcome the High Level Policy Dialogue on science, technology and innovation held between the two continents.”
Full declaration: www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_Data/docs/pressdata/en/ec/142096.pdf
African and European representation in EDCTP 2
10 April 2014 – The Hague: The EDCTP Association was established as the new legal structure for EDCTP2. Participating States of the first EDCTP Programme with the exception of Belgium will continue in EDCTP2. The other EDCTP Participating States, including the African countries that have agreed to join the programme, have been invited to officialise their membership at the EDCTP General Assembly meeting scheduled for 5-6 May 2014. So far, 10 new countries have agreed to join: Finland, Cameroon, Congo, Ghana, Mozambique, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
Contact: Gert Onne van de Klashorst, Communications Officer, EDCTP (klashorst@edctp.org)
AMCOST approves STISA-2024, ASRIC, AOSTI & PAIPO
15-18 April 2014 – Brazzaville: the African Ministerial Conference on Science & Technology (AMCOST) approved the Strategy 2024 on Science, Technology & Innovation for Africa (STISA-2024) and adopted the statutes for the establishment of the following institutions: the African Scientific Research and Innovation Council (ASRIC), the African Observatory for Science, Technology and Innovation (AOSTI) and the Pan-African Intellectual Property Organisation (PAIPO). These are now on track for adoption by African heads of states at the next AU summit at the end of June 2014 in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea.
Further information: Department of HRST, African Union Commission, Addis Ababa.
Expert Working Group on STI for food & nutrition security and sustainable agriculture
30 April 2014 – Brussels: formed on the basis of a decision of the EU- Africa High Level Policy Dialogue on STI the High Level Expert Working Group (HLEWG) on STI serving food and nutrition security and sustainable agriculture held its kick-off meeting. The HLEWG is tasked with developing a roadmap to support the implementation of a jointly funded and co-owned research and innovation partnership with a particular focus on food & nutrition security and sustainable agriculture.
Contact: Nienke Buisman, DG Research & Innovation, European Commission (nienke.buisman@ec.europa.eu)
Reports on African research capacities & EU-Africa collaboration in ICT
The reports cover 17 African countries involved in FP7 project IST-Africa.
- Guide to National ICT Initiatives and Research Capacity provides an overview of the current ICT Initiatives, research capacity, FP7 participation, etc. as of January 2014.
www.ist-africa.org/home/files/IST-Africa_ICTInitiatives_ResearchCapacity_310114.pdf
- Guide to Bilateral & Multilateral Cooperation Agreements Supporting ICT/STI related Activities provides an overview of bi-lateral and multi-lateral cooperation as of January 2014.
www.ist-africa.org/home/files/IST-Africa_BilateralCooperation_310114.pdf
Upcoming events:
- 5-6 May 2014 – Johannesburg: Enhancing collaboration between the development aid and the global environmental change communities meeting organised by ICSU (www.icsu.org/africa/)
- 6-9 May 2014 – Mauritius: IST-Africa 2014 conference (www.ist-africa.org/conference2014/)
- 28-30 May 2014 – Kigali: CAAST-Net Plus Regional Workshop on Climate Change (www.caast-net-plus.org/object/event/818)
- 6 July 2014 – Botswana: Horizon 2020 information workshop (TBC)
- 7-10 July 2014 – Botswana: 2014 SARIMA conference (www.sarimaconference.co.za)
Website of EU Delegation to the African Union (AU): http://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/african_union
Contact: Stéphane Hogan, Counsellor for R&I, EU Delegation to AU: stephane.hogan@eeas.europa.eu