R4D is addressing critical gaps in African research and innovation ecosystems by strengthening institutions and enabling collaboration for inclusive growth.
The Challenge: Gaps in Research and Innovation Systems Across Africa
Across Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa and Ethiopia, researchers and innovators face systemic barriers that limit their ability to address social, economic and public health challenges.
Many local institutions — including research institutes, think tanks and universities — lack the capacity, funding and networks they need to produce relevant research, scale promising innovations and reach decision-makers with timely, actionable evidence for inclusive policymaking.
At the same time, social innovators and entrepreneurs face an uphill task in accessing research and translating it into viable, market-ready solutions for the public good.
The Opportunity: Unlocking Locally Led Research and Innovation for Sustainable Impact
Poor coordination between research institutions and other innovation actors means decision-makers and entrepreneurs often lack the scientific input they need to develop impactful policies, products and services.
By catalyzing public-private partnerships, providing technical assistance and administering grants, the FCDO-funded Research and Innovation Systems for Africa (RISA) Fund supports researchers and their institutions to access the knowledge, partners, investors and markets they need to generate actionable research and influence policy.
The fund aims to improve coordination between research and innovation systems in the six countries and unlock the conditions for locally owned solutions that generate sustainable development impact at scale.
R4D’s Work: Catalyzing a Stronger Ecosystem for Research and Innovation in Africa
The RISA Fund brings together two U.K.-funded programs — Strengthening Research Institutions in Africa (SRIA) and African Technology and Innovation Partnerships (ATIP) — into one joint fund to better align research and innovation systems.
Delivered by a consortium led by Chemonics International, with SOAS University of London leading the research and innovation strengthening component, R4D designs and facilitates innovation ecosystem initiatives across six African countries. Through ATIP, we help innovators translate academic research into market-ready solutions.
Our focus includes:
- Providing technical assistance, stakeholder engagement and ecosystem support across the program, from design through implementation.
- Supporting grantees such as ViKtoria Ventures and Heritors Labs to advance their research-to-commercialization (R2C) efforts, particularly as they help researchers in Kenya and Ghana translate innovations into viable businesses.
- Promoting policy and institutional reforms in Rwanda, where we recently participated in reviews of the draft National Council for Science and Technology Technology Transfer and Commercialization Strategy, and the Research and Innovation Ecosystem Maturity Assessments Report.
- Supporting institutions such as the University of Gondar, Ethiopia in designing and coordinating capacity-strengthening activities that enable adoption of knowledge and technology transfer platforms to improve livelihoods among rural farming communities and minority groups.
- Distilling project learnings into thought leadership pieces and resources, including this four-stage R2C framework that leverages the complementary skills of researchers and entrepreneurs to facilitate development and scale-up of impactful, market-ready innovations.
