The first round of successful applications to ERAfrica, the €10 million (US$13m) EU-Africa research fund, released last month, could be its last, Research Africa can reveal.
The programme announced 17 winning research proposals in February. The programme used EU funding to coordinate a joint EU-Africa fund, supported by African and European national funders.
The programme was heralded as innovative, particularly as it drew on national African funding, and formed a blueprint for multilateral research funds for the future.
But Johan Viljoen, ERAfrica project manager, says the first round could be its last, although new EU-Africa programmes could emerge from Horizon 2020, the EU’s recently launched seven-year research funding programme.
“ERAfrica was always conceived to be a three-year project with a single call, and although projects of this kind are sometimes renewed, this is by no means guaranteed,” he told Research Africa last week.
He described the project as a great success: “In no way is the decision not to renew ERAfrica related to the project itself or its performance, which has clearly been excellent.”
New opportunities may come sooner rather than later. The European Commission has launched a call In Horizon 2020 for a Europe-Africa collaborations, called ‘H2020-INT-INCO-2014’ with a budget of €8.3m.
Although the call is not be a direct continuation of ERAfrica, it can be seen as building on the basis for cooperation created by the ERAfrica project, says Viljoen.
He adds that it is certain that the project consortium for the new call will include partners from both Europe and Africa, and probably some countries which did not participate in ERAfrica.
ERAfrica was bankrolled by the supporting countries, which originally included nine from Europe (Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and Turkey) and three from Africa (Egypt, Kenya and South Africa). By the end of the programme it also had Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Netherlands and Norway, bringing the total to 16. African countries contributed nearly €2.8m to the total.
The winning proposals in the first ERAfrica grant round draw on participants from all member countries. Out of 124 proposals submitted, 18 were ruled ineligible primarily because of incompatibility with the national regulations of the various funding institutions.
Kenya participates in the highest number of projects, with involvement in a total of twelve. It is closely followed by South Africa with eleven projects. Burkina Faso participates in seven, Ivory Coast in five, Egypt in three and Ethiopia one.
“The quality of selected applications was very high,” says Viljoen.
ERAfrica winning projects
|
Project name |
Partner countries |
|
Increasing innovation potential by European African cooperation
|
Germany, Kenya, Portugal, Austria, Burkina Faso |
|
Addressing societal challenges of biotechnology in Africa. Towards balanced innovation
|
Belgium, Burkina Faso, Netherlands, Belgium, Kenya, South Africa |
|
Antibiotics and anti-quorum sensing compounds from African fungal endophytes inhabiting medicinal plants and cultures of macromycetes
|
Germany, Kenya, Germany, South Africa, Belgium |
|
Local climate change in 3 cities (Cairo, Nairobi, Istanbul) with different population, urban structure, land use classification and climate characteristics and compare different adaptation strategies
|
Egypt, Germany, Turkey, Kenya |
|
Increasing innovation potential by European-African cooperation
|
Netherlands, South Africa, Kenya, Germany |
|
The African Melioidosis Network: improving health through an integrated microbiological, clinical and environmental research approach
|
Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Germany, Ghana, Madagascar, Netherlands, Austria
|
|
Vascular endothelial dysfunction: The putative interface of emerging cardiovascular risk factors affecting populations living with and without HIV in sub- Saharan Africa
|
Belgium, Kenya, South Africa, Austria, Ivory Coast |
|
Tailored fermentation for delivery of wholegrain and cereal fibre-rich products: promoting dietary fibre intake in Africa and Europe |
Finland, Portugal, Kenya, Burkina Faso |
|
CONNEcting knowledge, scales and actors; An integrated framework for adaptive organic resource management targeting soil aggradation and agroecosystems’ resilience in SSA
|
Belgium, Netherlands, Austria, Germany, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, France, Kenya |
|
Contribution of cereal-based fermented foods to folate intake in European and African countries
|
France, Burkina Faso, Finland, South Africa, Ethiopia |
|
Health hazards caused by bacteria in traditional African fermented dairy products: Food safety and epidemiology
|
Switzerland, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Germany, France |
|
Measuring accessibility in policy evaluation
|
South Africa, Switzerland, Germany, Kenya |
|
Development of grain drying facilities that use super absorbent polymers and adjusting the properties of SAPs to optimise drying of grain and control of aflatoxin contamination
|
Kenya, Switzerland, Germany, South Africa |
|
Stymieing infant mortality: effects of manipulating oxygen tension on lung development and lung vascular plasticity
|
Kenya, Switzerland, Germany, South Africa |
|
Detection methods for fruit flies of economic significance to fruit and vegetable production in Africa and Indian Ocean islands
|
South Africa, Belgium, France, Ivory Coast
|
|
Advanced hydrogen energy systems |
Norway, South Africa, Egypt, Turkey |
|
Development of an advanced high-efficient low-cost power-generation with minimum carbon emission from hybrid-fuel supplies
|
Norway, Belgium, South Africa, Turkey, Egypt |
This article was corrected on 14 March to give the correct name of the new EU-Africa collaboration call, H2020-INT-INCO-2014.