West Africa Research Ecosystem Assessment Scorecard Program 2024 – Call for Proposals (up to £500,000)

Proposals are invited for the West Africa Research Ecosystem Assessment Scorecard Program 2024. The Fund will be used to develop a simple colour-coded score card to assess national performance on research and development in selected countries within West Africa. This will be used for planning and advocacy to strengthen the overall research ecosystem while improving identified weaknesses.

Underlying the scorecard should be a framework and methodology, which should use or build on existing approaches. The research should cover all key constraints to research and development (R&D).

Funding of West Africa Research

• Value of the funding ranges from £100,001 to £500,000.

Check : UN FAO Regular Volunteer Programme for Africa (RAF) 2025

Eligibility for West Africa Research

Organisations should be able to demonstrate skills and expertise in the following areas:

Legal entity

• the supplier should be a legally registered not-for-profit, think-tank, or multilateral development organisation. Research or academic associations are also welcome. Such organisation should be registered in Nigeria or Ghana or have institutional members in these countries if an association.
• the organisation should have been in existence for at least 7 years.

Regional research capacity

• research capacity should be readily available across Africa (Francophone and Anglophone).
• successfully implemented public policy and thematic area research projects in the last 5 years across Africa as a region and specifically in Nigeria, Ghana, Cote D’Ivoire, and Senegal.
• evidence of research-based engagements across different strata of stakeholders and research output communication across a wide spectrum of up-takers in West Africa.
• evidence of research to policy uptake and impact in Africa (particularly in the selected countries) across several thematic areas within the last 5 years.

Personnel specification

• the team lead or Principal Investigator (PI) must have a mix of research expertise Senior Lecturer equivalent and above if in the academia or equivalent from the industry with strong research methodology, education, public policy and evidence uptake technical expertise and training.
• the team lead or PI should have strong relationships with strategic partners, institutions, and stakeholders in the science, technology and research communities within West Africa.
• it is desirable for the team lead or PI to be bilingual (English and French). There must be strong capacity for bilingual policy and thematic area research within the organisation.
• research personnel should cut across academia, multiple thematic professional areas, and management consulting. Senior level personnel should have at least 10 years’ experience while junior level at least 5 years’ experience.
• project/grant management, as well as monitoring, evaluation, research and learning (MERL) personnel should have at least 5 years of experience in research and international development sectors.
• senior level personnel should have at least Master’s degrees while junior level personnel should have at least Bachelor’s degrees across both research, project management and MERL responsibilities. These should be complemented with relevant professional certifications on research management, research quality assessment, project/grant management, finance and administration, and MERL.
• the supplier must have research methodologists as part of the team implementing this grant. This should cut across both senior and junior levels.
• thematic research areas of deep dive should have junior and senior level expertise on the research teams domiciled in the selected countries of study.

Join us on Telegram for more opportunities!