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Science Granting Councils across Africa are shifting from simply funding research to actively shaping national and continental policy through evidence, accountability, innovation and inclusion.
The transformation is crucial for ensuring that science and technology drive Africa's development agenda, as Councils continue to increase their influence on policies, foster innovation, and deliver tangible benefits to society.
These ideals were highlighted during a panel discussion at the 2025 Science Granting Councils Initiative (SGCI) Forum in Accra, which brought together representatives from 17 councils, international funders, and African Union institutions to review lessons from the past decade and finalise plans for the next phase of the initiative.
Launched in 2015, the SGCI is supported by partners, including the UK's Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad), the German Research Foundation (DFG), and South Africa's National Research Foundation (NRF).
Its first two phases (2015-2025) helped strengthen African councils in research management, policy engagement, gender equality, and regional collaboration.
The upcoming third phase (2026-2030) will emphasise delivery of results, policy influence, and African ownership, aligned with the African Union's Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy for Africa (STISA-2034).
Ms Esperance Munganyinka, Head of the National Research and Innovation Fund at the National
Council for Science and Technology, Rwanda said at the Council, policy was treated as a continuous cycle, from design, to implementation, to monitoring, and revision.
Rwanda revised its STI policy in 2020 and has since committed more than eight million dollars to 126 projects, 80 per cent of which were funded by the government.
"And to implement this revised policy, we have to put in place the National Research and Innovation Agenda, which defines the priority areas. Now we have six priority areas.
"We have food and security. We have water and infrastructure. We have health. We have energy. We have ICT. We have climate change," she explained.
Targeted schemes, she said, were supporting women researchers and academia-industry collaboration, while projects were being scaled from proof-of-concept to market-ready innovations.
Rwanda has also joined the global "Grand
Challenges" family with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Ms Neema Tindamanyire from the Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH) in Tanzania said the Commission had assessed over 400 projects using its Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning framework.
She said the findings led to reforms such as more flexible reporting schedules, targeted calls for environmental research, and the design of a comprehensive national STI data system supported by the World Bank.
Ms Lesego M. Thamae of the Ministry of Communication and Innovation, Botswana said her outfit had turned to digital solutions by introducing a Research Information Management System in 2023 to coordinate funding applications and track research across ministries.
She said while uptake had been slow, they maintained their stance that researchers must register on the platform before accessing grants to
improve accountability and transparency.
"Since it's still new for researchers to upload their information, the process is very slow. But what we are insisting on through the funding mechanisms is that no researcher will be awarded any grants if they have not registered in the system, in the research information management system."
"...at the click of a button, we should get whatever information we need, which researcher is doing what," she said Côte d'Ivoire's National Research and Innovation Fund (FONSTI) had also tightened measures by requiring researchers to submit policy briefs at the end of their projects, ensuring findings reach decision-makers.
"We have put measures in place to evaluate the impact of the research," Mr Armand Coulibaly, Administrative and Finance Director of FONSTI, said.
He said researchers were also being trained in intellectual property protection to strengthen commercialization.
