Making new forms of Africa–Europe research collaboration a reality

In June 2023, organisations representing more than 2 000 universities and research organisation in Africa and Europe were united by our joint call for action towards an Africa–Europe science, technology, and innovation (STI) programme.

The call for action came at a crucial moment when the adoption of the AU–EU Innovation Agenda was imminent. By welcoming this framework as a key step towards strengthening the African knowledge society, our broad coalition of stakeholders signalled its encouragement and wish to contribute. The Agenda recognises the key role that research will play in overcoming challenges in our societies. Nevertheless, in our call we highlighted that a thriving ecosystem for research in Africa needs systematic investments, best provided through better integration of Europe’s Global Gateway and African research funding institutions with Horizon Europe and Erasmus+.

Our coalition’s key demands were to enhance and extend the ARISE programme, funding and synergies to enable collaborative ‘centres of excellence’ and investment in African R&I infrastructure.  

Our coalition remains active, and the joint call provides strategic guidance to The Guild’s ongoing advocacy with European institutions to better enable equitable partnerships between African and European researchers. Our sectoral call on funders to take an integrated approach sets the scene for the Africa–Europe Clusters of Research Excellence. These clusters should be bold, fostering new forms of collaboration that are more resilient and driven by excellence, They should be able to address major disparities between Africa and Europe in a systemic way for the long-term benefit of science and society.

There are diverse constellations of collaborators across the Africa–Europe CoRE. The number and type of partners, as well as the nature of their cluster theme and multilateral links to one another, have contributed to producing a varied array of activities since their establishment. While some of the activities have been public, including online masterclasses and webinars, others have been more internal activities among collaborators to build their mutual understanding and governance, take on specific roles and in some cases apply for funding.

The Guild and ARUA have also been convening two series of regular cross-cluster meetings: the Steering Group and the academic co-leads, each participating remotely from the two continents. These meetings have been used to discuss how equitable partnerships can best be guaranteed across the CoRE, refining expectations of how the CoREs should operate and be supported, while maintaining each Cluster’s academic freedom.

In February 2024, The Guild co-organised the NEXUS conference in Brussels with the Pan-European GÉANT network and NORDUnet, the National Research and Education Network that represents more than 400 research & education institutions in the Nordics serving over 1.2 million digital service users. The event focused on the value of research and education infrastructure in enabling scientists, educators, and students to work and share knowledge globally. This theme was very much in line with the third demand in The Guild’s joint call for action towards an integrated Africa–Europe STI programme published in June 2023. The importance of this topic was exemplified in concrete and ambitious terms by the panel of research infrastructure users made up of partners in the Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, and Theoretical and Computational Thinking CoRE from Uppsala, Stellenbosch and Makerere, moderated by Jan Palmowski. The participants at the conference included European Commission officials, African national embassy representatives, multilateral organisations such as UNESCO, and members of the digitalisation and R&I sectors. This conference was an opportunity to learn across divides and emphasise the need for a stronger Africa–Europe cooperation enabling and enabled by excellent R&I, in an era of unprecedented societal challenges.