Every 2 months we post an overview of the ARD funding opportunities. But what is striking is that a lot of publicity is made about calls, less about the selected proposals and still less about the outcomes of projects.
But innovation cannot be funded through research funding [only]. And innovation means willing to take risks. In addition the agricultural innovation system approach requires different actors to collaborate.
For the past two years the EC-funded PAEPARD project has been supporting 19 multi stakeholder platforms in Africa for innovative agricultural research in development on a variety of commodities (chicken feed in Nigeria, multi-layer plastic bags for maize in Ghana, African Solanaceae Plants in Uganda, etc). But while preparing those consortia to submit proposals, the majority of funding opportunities are research oriented.
In the initial proposals the users took the lead (farmers and private companies) with a strong market component. But the proposals needed to be reoriented towards the traditional research call criteria (for instance: The African Union Research call with deadline 20/04/2012).
A diversity of stakeholders (instead of mainly researchers) should be able to submit joint proposals in line with value chain consultation, research and innovation. One example is the German call for proposals GlobE. http://paepard.blogspot.be/2011/08/information-event-globe-global-food.html. What is attractive in this scheme is that consortia get funding for up to six months in the first phase. The maximum grant is €75,000 over a period of six months. During this period the consortium members have the time to draft a full proposal for an interdisciplinary, systemic cooperation research project. This forms the basis of a second round of evaluation. The duration of the funded research period proper will be 3+2 years.
Typical though for bilateral funding opportunities is that those consortia have necessarily to involve an European (German) research partner, limiting the bargaining power and research priority setting of African and users-led (farmer organizations and private companies).
The advocacy message of PAEPARD towards bilateral donors in ARD is therefore to rethink funding mechanisms.
Ref: innovative use of funds raised.
Every 2 months we post an overview of the ARD funding opportunities. But what is striking is that a lot of publicity is made about calls, less about the selected proposals and still less about the outcomes of projects.
http://paepard.blogspot.be/search/label/funding
“The growing global demand for agricultural innovation makes it vital to assess the characteristics that separate effective from ineffective innovation fund mechanisms” [DESIGNING AND IMPLEMENTING AGRICULTURAL INNOVATION FUNDS: Lessons from Competitive Research and Matching Grant Projects © 2010 The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/ The World Bank](http://paepard.blogspot.be/2011/08/information-event-globe-global-food.html)
But innovation cannot be funded through research funding [only]. And innovation means willing to take risks. In addition the agricultural innovation system approach requires different actors to collaborate.
For the past two years the EC-funded PAEPARD project has been supporting 19 multi stakeholder platforms in Africa for innovative agricultural research in development on a variety of commodities (chicken feed in Nigeria, multi-layer plastic bags for maize in Ghana, African Solanaceae Plants in Uganda, etc). But while preparing those consortia to submit proposals, the majority of funding opportunities are research oriented.
In the initial proposals the users took the lead (farmers and private companies) with a strong market component. But the proposals needed to be reoriented towards the traditional research call criteria (for instance: The African Union Research call with deadline 20/04/2012).
A diversity of stakeholders (instead of mainly researchers) should be able to submit joint proposals in line with value chain consultation, research and innovation. One example is the German call for proposals GlobE. http://paepard.blogspot.be/2011/08/information-event-globe-global-food.html. What is attractive in this scheme is that consortia get funding for up to six months in the first phase. The maximum grant is €75,000 over a period of six months. During this period the consortium members have the time to draft a full proposal for an interdisciplinary, systemic cooperation research project. This forms the basis of a second round of evaluation. The duration of the funded research period proper will be 3+2 years.
Typical though for bilateral funding opportunities is that those consortia have necessarily to involve an European (German) research partner, limiting the bargaining power and research priority setting of African and users-led (farmer organizations and private companies).
The advocacy message of PAEPARD towards bilateral donors in ARD is therefore to rethink funding mechanisms.
http://paepard.blogspot.be/2012/06/steering-committee-meeting-of-efard.html
Francois Stepman
European Co-manager
Platform for African - European Partnership in ARD
c/o CTA Brussels Office
39 rue Montoyer. 1000 Brussels.
Tel. 00-32-2 513 74 36
Mobile: 00-32-474627686 (Belgium)
http://paepard.blogspot.com