ST-EAP participants at the workshop in Nairobi, Kenya
|
The African Academy of Science (AAS) and the CSIR, South Africa organised a successful workshop, which was held on 26 and 27 March 2009 in Nairobi Kenya as part of their management and administration responsibilities of ST-EAP (Science & Technology Europe-Africa Project).
ST-EAP is a Europe-African project, under Framework Programme 6 (PF6), which was implemented in 2007.
The objectives of the workshop were to:
Raise awareness among African researchers to participate FP7, as well as looking into its challenges.
Provide a basis for networking between African researchers to promote cooperation and coordination between African countries to encourage participation in FP7.
Increase awareness of the role of the science and technology programme.
The workshop was held over two days with over 100 participants including academics, researchers and government officials. Participants were from 20 countries; including Kenya. Among these countries were Mali, Madagascar, Mauritius, Ghana, Nigeria, Morocco, Sudan, Malawi, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Uganda and South Africa.
In the opening remarks session, Mr Titus Katembu, an EU representative based in Nairobi read a speech from the European Commission. It mentioned that “S&T cooperation with Africa is not driven by philanthropy, but by common interests and common benefits. The global S&T context is calling for a strengthened cooperation between Europe and Africa. Our S&T cooperation with Africa should follow two routes: Building a basic S&T infrastructure, and pro-actively pursuing strategic research.”
The speakers included researchers and scientists who have participated in the FP projects and who had a clear understanding of how the PFs work. Topics included tips and guidelines to prepare an EU FP proposal; examples of African FP7 proposals; and the relationships between EU and Africa on S&T.
The last session of the programme, which the participants found to be extremely interesting and challenging was where the participants were allocated into groups, according to their thematic areas of interest. In these groups they had to discuss possible thematic topics for EU FP7 and show how these topics could benefit the community.
By the end of the workshop, almost 50 participants had already registered as ST-EAP community members and half of those have inquired about the FP7 current open calls.
ST-EAP will be measured or evaluated by the number of African researchers who participated in FP7, while the project was in action.
News contributed by: Berenice Lue Marais,Contract R&D
|
