Strengthening the Europe-Africa Digital Ecosystem Through Increased R&I Cooperation

The SEADE project provides fundamental and tangible support services to the Research and Innovation (R&I) ecosystems of Europe (EU) and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), undertaking human-centred research, programme development/delivery, and pilot actions in four SSA target regions to support increased cooperation.

These actions will focus on two key areas identified as challenges for this ecosystem: digital transformation and international collaboration.

Alongside the programme development, integration of legacy elements from current or newly closed initiatives working in the EU-SSA R&I, such as the ICT-58 projects funded under Horizon 2020, will provide the R&I in Digital (R&IID) actors across both continents with a comprehensive resource toolkit, made available within the legacy platform of the ENRICH in Africa (EiA) project.

With this approach SEADE aims to provide a seamless ‘Route-to-Market’ pathway for the R&I actors in transferring research knowledge into market success, thus supporting the development of economic growth, and facilitate job market boosting.By founding the actions of SEADE in a human-centred approach, the activities can be developed through user-, as well as market-driven research, ensuring the services developed are relevant and required by the target users, and therefore more likely to be successful.

The delivery of these new services within 4 pilot regions (Ghana, Kenya, Senegal, South Africa), will enable the SEADE consortium to set measurable criteria for the assessment of such actions within different cultural, political, and financial ecosystems.

This data will enable SEADE to produce key policy positioning papers and reports, which can support the development of further R&IID targeted actions in other African regions.The EU and SSA actors of SEADE will be engaged via the wealth of networks available within the consortium partnership, enabling a strong dissemination and communication strategy for the project to be undertaken from the start.