PAEPARD AI Facilitators - Call

Download details in English or French

Background documents

• Application form
• Profile of an agricultural innovator
• Refining the concept of broker
• Guidelines for Innovative African-European Innovation Partnership in Agricultural Researcch for Development in Subsaharan Africa
• PAEPARD partnerships and capacity building actions and philosophy

PAEPARD invites innovative partnerships to apply for support

The Platform for African-European Partnership on Agricultural Research for Development (PAEPARD) supports the establishment of innovative partnerships of African and European stakeholders that engage in agricultural innovation and collaborative research to address shared challenges and opportunities of the partners involved.

PAEPARD sees agricultural innovation as a process that requires the collective effort of different actors with different roles:

  1. Actors whose demands drive the innovation process and who thus have a direct stake in the results (e.g. producers, processors, traders, retailers)
  2. Actors whose support is needed to make the innovation work (e.g. technical, financial and business support services, policy makers, schools, training centres, universities), including research actors with the knowledge and competencies needed to help the other actors develop new answers to their joint challenge and take informed decisions.
  3. Brokers or innovation-facilitators who bring actors together around a shared challenge or opportunity, facilitate the interactions, negotiations and knowledge sharing between the actors, help level the playing field and strengthen actors’ capacities.

A successful innovation process thus requires much more than research. And, for research to contribute to agricultural innovation, it has to be integrated with the innovation process. The researchers and other actors need to continuously share knowledge, learn together and mutually readjust their actions to ensure that results are relevant.

The partnerships that PAEPARD supports aim to conduct joint innovation processes that address shared challenges or opportunities. More specifically, within the context of their innovation process, these partnerships wish to formulate and seek funding for joint agricultural research for development (ARD) activities that support their innovation process. While these research activities will be led by a research partner, the leadership of an innovation process goes beyond the mandate and competence of a research organisation and thus requires that another actor assumes this role.


Aspiring partnerships are invited to apply for support to establish their partnership and formulate collaborative ARD proposals targeted at identified funding opportunities without the later being an end. The proposals should emphasize more on the indicators of impact on livelihoods of small farmers in Africa with the aim of contributing to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

   Selection criteria

The detailed criteria that will be used to assess the applications are provided in the attached scorecard.  The following are the main criteria:

  • Composition of the partnership: Partnerships should comprise both “non-research partners” (producer organisation, private sector organisation and/or NGO) and “research partners” (research organisations, universities), and both African and European partners. A partnership should have at least one European partner, one African non-research partner and one African research partner. All partners should have an interest in addressing the shared innovation challenge or opportunity.
  • Role of the research and non-research partners: Partners should jointly conduct an innovation process, preferably initiated and led by a non-research partner; the research activities undertaken as part of this innovation process will be led by a competent research partner.
  • Openness to empowerment of non-research partners: Partners should be willing to work with PAEPARD to enable non-research partners to play their expected role.
  • Prospect of obtaining research funding: Partnerships should aim to develop ARD proposals targeting published or expected calls or existing other funding opportunities offered by identified donors.


Support offered

Depending on needs, the successful applicants will benefit from the following support from PAEPARD:
1.    Support for participation in a facilitated “partnership inception workshop”.
2.    Support for capacity strengthening, including training of an innovation-facilitator proposed by the partnership.
3.    Support for facilitation and coordination of partnerships.

Partnership inception workshops

The objective of the inception workshops is to allow the proposed partners to establish their partnership and to develop an action plan for their innovation process, including clearly agreed principles for working in partnership, and roles, responsibilities and commitments of the partners. These workshops will follow a “learning-by-doing” approach to help partners to learn from each other and acquire competencies, tools and principles for efficient and effective collaboration in a multi-stakeholder innovation partnership. Through these workshops partners will produce the following results: a shared analysis of the challenge identified by the non-research partners; a consensus on what they want to achieve together; an in-depth analysis of the interests of the partners and other actors to be involved in the innovation process, and of their expected roles and responsibilities in the process; an action plan for the joint innovation process and research proposal development; the governance and management mechanisms for the partnership. These workshops are facilitated by PAEPARD partners and/or the innovation-facilitators proposed by the individual partnerships. Facilitators also capitalise on the achievements. Three to four partnerships may take part in each workshop. Workshops are expected to take five (5) full days. The support from PAEPARD for participation in inception workshops is limited to travel (including a return air ticket), a Daily Subsistence Allowance (DSA) depending on the venue of the workshop and accommodation costs. Thus PAEPARD will not disburse any cash to consortium but will facilitate the consortium members to meet.  

Support for capacity strengthening    

Selected partnerships will benefit from generic and tailored needs-based capacity strengthening. This includes the learning achieved through the partnership inception workshops, training of the innovation-facilitators proposed by the selected partnerships and coaching of these innovation-facilitators while they  facilitate the interactions, negotiations and knowledge sharing between the partners, help level the playing field and strengthen partners’ and other actors’ capacities. Coaching support is also provided to help partners formulate demand-driven research proposals for submission to their targeted funding window. PAEPARD supports the travel, subsistence and accommodation costs for participation of innovation-facilitators in a training workshop offered by PAEPARD. It also supports the cost of coaching of innovation-facilitators and the coaching of research proposal formulation by PAEPARD partners.

Support for facilitation and coordination of partnerships

Successful partnerships established through this process will benefit from support from PAEPARD through the training and coaching of their innovation-facilitators. The latter will help facilitate and coordinate the partnerships, provided that the partners provide the resources for this themselves.

Application form

Applicants should use the application form attached as Annex 1.

Deadlines

Applications should be received at the address indicated in the application form no later than 15th July 2011. Please kindly return you Application form as a word file (not PDF) attached to an email to the secretariat of PAEPARD selection committee (jmugabe@fara-africa.org and fstepman@fara-africa.org).  

Applicants will be informed of the result of their application on 15th September 2011.

Inception workshops will be planned in consultation with the successful partnerships and are expected to take place in Mid October

SCORECARD FOR ASSESSING APPLICATIONS FOR SUPPORT
To assess the applications, PAEPARD will use the below scorecard
Eligibility criteria

Criteria

Yes

No

1. Does the applicant and do each of the partners meet the requirements for legal status and stakeholder mandate?

1

0
2. Does the partnership have at least 3 partners with 1 from Europe?

1

0
3. Is there at least 1 African non-research partner and 1 African research partner?

1

0

          Maximum score

3

Don’t continue unless the Applicant scores 3 in this first scorecard. Successful applicant goes through the following selection process


A. Expected impact

Criteria

Yes

No
1. Has the proposed partnership clearly identified intended beneficiaries and development outcomes?

1-10

0
2. Do the proposed partnership and innovation process add value to existing initiatives?

1-10

0
3. Are the expected outcomes of the proposed innovation process likely to benefit large numbers of people beyond the partnership? [indicate the categories of stakeholders to be impacted]

1-10

0

Maximum score: 30 ;              Required score: 20 

Total score


B. Partnership suitability

Criteria

Yes

No

1. Have the partners clearly defined a joint innovation challenge or opportunity that requires their concerted effort?

1-10

0
2. Does the application clearly show evidence of demand by end-users/beneficiaries?

1-10

0
3. How plausible is it that the partnership will evolve in a research partnership?[How research is coming in to help resolving the challenge]

1-10

0
4. Is the proposed partnership likely to be sustainable?

1-10

0

Maximum score: 40;  Required score: 25

Total score


C.Profile of applicant and partners

Criteria

Yes

 
1. Does the applicant have the required expertise and experience to lead the development of the proposed partnership and innovation process?

0-10

0
2. Is the proposed partnership composed of a core group of partners (including a research partner) capable of providing the required complementary inputs to address the shared challenge or opportunity?

0-10

0
3. Does the proposed division of roles and responsibilities enable non-research partners to keep the partnership focused on their needs?

0-10

0

Maximum score :30;   Required score: 20

Total score



 

 BIO CIRCLE

The BIO CIRCLE is a project funded by the European Commission. It aims at increasing the participation of researchers from outside Europe in research projects under the Food, Agriculture, Fisheries and Biotechnology theme (FAFB) of the 7th Framework Programme (FP7) http://www.biocircle-project.eu/dnn4/

FARA operates as an interface between the EU and FAFB research communities in Sub Saharan Africa. Whether you are an education body, researcher, entrepreneur, business specialist, government agency, representative of a public service or a non-profit organisation, you can fill in your profile.

Once screened by FARA The profiles will be uploaded on the partner search database of http://www.biocircle-project.eu/dnn4/home/tabid/61/Default.aspx

3rd Call of the The Seventh Framework Programme (FP7)

Theme:Food Agriculture, Fisheries and Biotechnology.

Work Programme 2009

 

Europa

The gateway to European research and development, Info Day on Call FP7-AFRICA-2010
More information

 

published: 2010-09-28

 

KBBE-2009-2-5-01: International food trade: anticipating the impact of climate change on the safety of European and global food markets –SICA                                                                                             

Call: FP7-KBBE-2009-3

Climate change is projected to have a significant impact on European and global food and feed markets. At present Europe is the biggest importer and exporter of food products. Climate change could make Europe more dependent on food imports of non-European origin but, conversely, offers new opportunities to the European food industry through the exploitation of new crops and animals originating from areas with an ecology similar to that expected in Europe in the future. The aim of this topic is dual: to explore new food and feed contamination pathways from natural and man-made chemicals and micro-organisms in Europe and, secondly, to investigate opportunities and risks for mutually beneficial international food trade, addressing all factors relevant to supporting and safeguarding trade in food, including appropriate packaging technologies, transport efficiency and logistics. The project will produce shared life-cycle quality assurance methods and processes together with risk assessment methods with Europe’s non-EU partners that take into account their specific production and processing conditions.

Funding scheme: Collaborative Project (large scale integrating project) for Specific Cooperation Actions Dedicated to International Cooperation

Additional eligibility criteria: SICA – Minimum Number of Participants: 3 from different Member States or Associated countries and 3 from different ICPC.

Expected impact: High European added value is expected from this topic on the safety of food in Europe and of non-European origin by increasing the ability to identify, monitor and prevent global food safety risks. This research will contribute to provide a long-term vision and strategy on international food trade giving European customers guarantees of the safety and quality of food and feed of European and non-European origin. This research will enhance the competitiveness of the Union’s food industry in the global marketplace. It will also identify non-tariff barriers and requirements for adaptation to the European food chain in order to seize opportunities for enhanced intra-European and international food trade. Finally, it will promote international RTD cooperation with non-EU countries of strategic importance to Europe, together with opportunities for setting up joint ventures. http://www.eiard.org