​About​ SGCI​​

SGCI Partners

- Canada
- South Africa
- South Africa

SGCI Contacts  

Dorothy Ngila
Project Specialist
Strategic Partnerships
National Research Foundation, South Africa
Telephone: +27 12 481 4302​

Loise Asewe Ochanda
Project Management Officer
International Development Research Centre
Telephone: +254 20 2713409

SGCI Advisory Committee

Dr Kevit Desai
Owner and Managing Director of Centurion Systems Ltd, Kenya

Dr Alex Ezeh
Outgoing Executive Director, African Population & Health Research Center, Kenya

Prof Berhanu Abegaz
Outgoing Executive Director, African Academy of Sciences, Kenya

Prof David Langley
Deputy CEO and Chief Partnerships Officer, New Model in Technology & Engineering (NMiTE), United Kingdom

Prof Frans Swanepoel
Professor, Agricultural Transformation in Africa (ATA), Centre for Advancement of Scholarship; Director, International Strategic Partnerships, University of Pretoria, South Africa

Prof Lynn Mytelka
Professorial Fellow, UNU –MERIT, The Netherlands

Dr Wanjiru Kamau-Rutenberg
Director, African Women in Agricultural Research and Development, Kenya

Who we are

The Science Granting Councils Initiative in Sub-Saharan Africa aims to strengthen the capacities of science granting councils in sub-Saharan Africa in order to support research and evidence-based policies that will contribute to the continent’s economic and social development.

Science Granting Councils

Science granting councils play a critical role in supporting the consolidation of a country’s national system of innovation, and are central to funding and catalysing research and innovation. These organisations are both agents of government and represent the interests of a country’s scientific community. They inter alia disburse funds for research and development; build research capacity through appropriate scholarships and bursaries; set and monitor research agendas and priorities; advise on science, technology and innovation policies; manage bilateral and multilateral science and technology agreements; and assess the communication, uptake and impact of publicly funded research.
 

SGCI Contribution

Science, technology and innovation landscapes across developing regions still suffer from a number of challenges including low capacities in research and research management. The importance of strengthening the capacities of publicly funded science granting councils in sub-Saharan Africa, important brokerage institutions for continued gains in STI development on the continent is an imperative.
 

The SGCI contributes to strengthening the ability of science granting councils to:

  • Manage research
  • Design and monitoring of research programmes based on the use of robust science, technology and innovation indicators
  • Support knowledge exchange with the private sector
  • Strengthen partnerships between Science Granting Councils and other science system actors 
 
 

SGCI Outcomes

 
  • More effective research management practices among science granting councils
  • Increased use of STI indicators to design and monitor research programmes
  • Increased knowledge transfer to the private sector
  • Increasingly coordinated and networked science granting councils 

 

SGCI Collaborating Technical Agencies