21 Nov 2016

Acting permanent secretary in the Ministry of Transport and Communications says the aim of Information, Science and Technology (IST) - Africa is to advance research, innovation and policy cooperation by knowledge sharing; capacity building and skills transfer between IST-Africa partner countries.

Officially opening the IST-Africa Horizon 2020 workshop, Mr John Vassiliadis said IST-Africa was founded in 2002 and co-funded under the European Framework programme since 2005.

He said IST-Africa was a strategic partnership between International Information Management Corporation (IIMC) Ltd, Ireland and Ministries and National Councils responsible for innovation, science and technology related adoption, implementation, policy and research in 18 African member states.

“IST-Africa facilitates and supports awareness of African research capacity, cross border cooperation and participation in Horizon 2020,” he said, also adding that it aims at collaborative innovation, entrepreneurship and adoption of living labs methodologies.

He noted that his ministry leverages the IST-Africa initiative to actively promote the National Research Community through among others chapter on Botswana as part of the overall IST-Africa study on ICT initiatives and research capacity and also publishing articles on on-going and emerging ICT and innovation activities in Botswana on the IST-Africa portal.

Ms Miriam Cunningham, coordinator of IIMC Ltd, Ireland and IST-Africa said Botswana’s participation in FP7 was evidenced by nine projects that the country undertook since 2008.

She indicated that there had been a considerable increase in participation from African member states and over P2 billion in research funding across 45 African member states.

She further said IST-Africa actively encouraged participation of African institutions in relevant calls under Horizon 2020 including those focused on Africa.

“To date Botswana has three Horizon 2020 projects being in water, sustainable food security and in ICT; coordination and support,” said Ms Miriam.

Horizon 2020 is the new European Framework programme for research and innovation for 2014-2020 and has three main pillars in excellent science, industrial leadership and societal challenges.

‘It is the biggest research and innovation programme with an estimated $80billion invested in it,” she said. BOPA