Authors: Moses Owidhi, Josephat Okemwa and Mourine Chepkemoi
Background to the webinar
The Science Granting Councils Initiative (SGCI) brings together 16 different councils from across Africa, that are English, French and Portuguese speaking and has provided them since 2015, an opportunity to share experiences about what works, what doesn’t work to help each other to collaborate. This has resulted in new collaborative partnerships across countries to fund cross-national research projects. It has also increased the amount of research funding available in these countries. One of the key roles of the initiative was to enable councils, to be able to make better arguments to their governments to receive additional funds. It has put a spotlight on the need to build national capabilities within the councils, but also more broadly within the science technology, innovation or research systems. In so doing,
Science Granting Councils (SGCS) are central actors to science systems in their countries. The SGCs have been recognized as critical to science, technology, and innovation (STI) systems in Africa. These councils have a critical role to play as boundary managers for building a broadly defined ‘science system’. To play this role, these Councils must embrace a wide range of roles to support STI such as policy making and influencing the policy process, and not just research funding. The Initiative has highlighted these multiple mandates and the importance of recognizing and strengthening their work across their multiple mandates.
The webinar reflected on these issues based on the work of the SGCI which has been on-going since 2015. Specifically, the webinar focused on the work the African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS) has been doing in the Initiative since 2017 with a variety of partners. The webinar was focused on issues facing African Science Councils and opportunities for them to become better boundary managers that were the subject of an open access book entitled Building Science System in Africa: Conceptual Foundations and Empirical Considerations published in 2021.
The webinar included a presentation by Prof. Rebecca Hanlin, Innovation and Development Specialist at African Centre for Technology Studies that focus on the main arguments outlined in the book. In addition, Mike Kachedwa from Malawi’s National Commission for Science and Technology gave a presentation highlighting the role of the Councils in STI towards development in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Key messages
- There is need to strengthen the role of SGCs in Sub Saharan Africa.
- The councils must implicitly or explicitly communicate and monitor the uptake and impact of the research/programme that they’re funding.
- The councils can do this more effectively if they have robust indicators to measure and evaluate the effectiveness of science systems.
- The councils should address multiple mandates in their monitoring and evaluation efforts and not only consider their research funding activities.
Introduction
Prof. Rebecca Hanlin started the webinar with the definition of ‘science council’. She outlined that science councils mean different things in different countries as sometimes they are referred to as research councils or national commissions as in the case of Malawi. In other cases, they are departments within an appropriate line ministry. They sit at an intermediary space between the state and the research community, and they’re able to influence the actors, organizations, and institutions within that system. They can conduct research capacity building through scholarships and bursaries as well as fund research projects that are in the national interest. Many of them have a monitoring role and conduct research and development surveys or innovation surveys. Several of them also have a mandate to assist the government in, STI policymaking and STI policy implementation. Many of them manage different types of agreements with regards to science and technology. And they must implicitly or explicitly conduct communication and assess uptake and impact of the research that they’re funding.
Prof. Rebecca Hanlin noted that, the SGCs have, for a long time, been neglected as actors within the Science Technology and Innovation ecosystem in the continent. Partly because they have traditionally lacked significant funding but also, because of the emphasis that’s being placed on other actors, particularly universities, industries, and governments at a broad level including ministries of STI or higher education that make government systems. In recent years, there has been a change in recognition that SGCs have the mandate to fund research, science, technology and/or innovation, as the importance of STI in the government ecosystem and as a catalyst for economic development is recognized.
The webinar outlined how the book is made up of contributions from academics and practitioners. It has several chapters that look at how the councils relate to the theory relating to STI systems, the relevance of thinking about different knowledge types the funding of research, , skills and brain circulation ideas, the role of public private partnerships and how research is financed in African countries as well as, research grants management and how we can measure and evaluate the effectiveness of, of science systems.
The discussions during the webinar focused on the competing demands for councils in terms of not just focusing on research funding, but also innovation funding. Also discussed was the importance of having adequate human resource capacity. It was noted that many African science councils have very lean staff with minimal skills to perform their roles effectively, even those that are large they are not always trained in specialist areas that they have to work in. A further discussion point was that councils struggle in their role because they don’t necessarily have access to the right data and expert advice when they need it.
Mr. Mike Kachedwa, in highlighting the perspective of the Councils, reiterated the difficulties many Councils faced and gave examples to back up many of the issues raised above. However, he also noted that the SGCI has provided an exceptional learning opportunity for Council staff and provided dedicated training on everything from research management to communications to evaluation methods. The result of this training has been enhanced awareness of the role of the Council within the broader research and STI ecosystem. It has advanced the skills and capabilities of staff within the councils and, in the case of his Council in Malawi, helped them make an argument to government for increased funding. Their efforts have contributed to the Malawian government resourcing an STI Fund that had previously been dormant.
Conclusion and recommendation
There is need for more funding for “research on science” or the study with how the research, Science Technology and Innovation ecosystem functions and improving understanding, through more research, on how to promote and fund research, science, technology and innovation. Such research and the knowledge created from this research is essential to the arsenal of information and evidence available to Science Councils. Such research will improve councils’ ability to communicate and monitor the uptake and impact of the research/programmes that they’re funding, developing STI indicators to measure and evaluate the effectiveness of science system and make arguments for additional research funding.
For more information on the book on which this event was based, please visit: https://www.acts-net.org/publications/books/building-science-systems-in-africa
About the speakers
Prof. Rebecca Hanlin
Prof. Hanlin is Innovation and Development Specialist for AfricaLics based at African Centre for Technology Studies in Nairobi, Kenya and a Professor within the DSI/NRF/Newton Fund Trilateral Research Chair in Transformative Innovation, the Fourth Industrial Revolution and Sustainable Development at the University of Johannesburg. Prof. Hanlin has spent the last 10 years advocating and working to strengthen innovation studies training in universities in Africa and is currently part of a team setting up the first African matching service between policy makers and science, technology and innovation studies scholars.
Mr. Mike Kachedwa
Mike is responsible for Health, Social Sciences and Humanities Research promotion, coordination, and regulation at a national level. He has been with the National Commission for Science and Technology since 1st February 2010 having previously worked for the then Ministry of Research and Environmental Affairs and the National Research Council of Malawi for over 15 years in the capacity of R&D management, promotion, co-ordination, and regulation. He is specifically responsible for initiating, facilitating, developing, reviewing, and implementing oversight programmes for effective R&D promotion, co-ordination and regulation in the Health, Social Sciences and Humanities sector.
Reference
Prof. Rebecca Hanlin, Dr. Aschalew Demeke Tigabu and Dr. Gussai Sheikheldin (2021): Building Science Systems in Africa: Conceptual Foundations and Empirical Considerations – available at: https://www.acts-net.org/publications/books/building-science-systems-in-africa