The O.R. Tambo Africa Research Chairs Initiative: utilising frugal funding mechanisms for long term strategic research investments

The O.R. Tambo Africa Research Chairs Initiative (ORTARChI) is an exciting example of how the South African National Research Foundation (NRF) has leveraged its partnerships through the Science Granting Councils Initiative (SGCI) in sub-Saharan Africa to develop a homegrown funding model for sustainable, long-term investment in the scientific enterprise in Africa.

A look at history to inspire the future

The ORTARChI is inspired by the work of Oliver Tambo, a prominent South African and pan-Africanist with a science education background, who believed in creating change through education and in global cooperation and solidarity.

The original proponent of the idea for ORTARChI was South Africa’s then Minister of Science and Technology, Dr Naledi Pandor, who tasked the NRF to conceptualise its design. From the outset, the NRF was inspired by the way in which Oliver Tambo had traversed the length and breadth of the African continent to engage with colleagues and comrades from across the spectrum, towards the development of strategies for how the continent and the world could support South Africa during the liberation struggle against Apartheid.

The NRF and its partners sought to replicate this exploratory and engagement exercise to find a way of honouring Tambo’s vision and legacy, this time with a view to bringing African countries together in a novel way to invest in the progress of the scientific enterprise in Africa. Those involved in the initiation and design of the ORTARChI thus followed O.R. Tambo’s example to seek global solidarity by securing commitment from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) to support the initiative. They worked closely with officials from the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation (DSTI) and the Oliver and Adelaide Tambo Foundation (OATF) to craft a shared vision of how Oliver Tambo’s values would inspire the initiative. They travelled to meet colleagues across the continent to strategise collaboratively around innovative ways in which African countries could engage in a mutually supportive approach to funding science on the continent.

By the time ORTARChI was announced, the NRF had already participated in the SGCI as both a funding and implementation partner and felt that the initiative could be incubated in the SGCI. The NRF thus utilised the opportunity presented at the SGCI annual forums and regional meetings to have conversations with science granting councils colleagues, who have deep insights into how their own national systems are organised, on how the funding model could be designed to ensure cost-sharing, and how the initiative’s sustainability could be designed to lead to a shared responsibility.

The NRF also engaged academic leaders of key research-performing universities on the continent to obtain their support for the initiative and to explore how such an initiative could be embedded in their institutions.

An innovative and frugal funding model

ORTARChI illustrates how African science granting councils, host universities, and research networks and collaborations can work collectively and cooperatively using limited financial resources for maximum impact – beyond what any single country could achieve on its own. The model also makes an important contribution to how African governments, science granting councils, and research-performing institutions can think about the sustainability of investments in science.

At the heart of this innovative and frugal funding model is distributed responsibility for funding across multiple partner organisations across the continent. It is also highly collaborative in nature. The NRF, DSTI, IDRC and NRF sister funding agencies provide baseline funding for ORTARChI that supports research activities. The host institutions guarantee the salaries of Chairholders. The research Chairholders are required to leverage additional resources that have included additional scholarships for postgraduate students and covering research expenses. The science granting councils and host institutions also make various forms of in-kind contributions. The councils, for instance, undertake much of the behind-the-scenes work to support both the Chairs and the NRF (e.g. around the preparation and submission of annual reports and the disbursement of funds), while the host institutions provide an enabling environment for the research Chair activities.

The financial sustainability of the Initiative is thus underpinned by the distributed responsibility and ownership for the funding of the research chairs across the science granting councils, host institutions, and additional funds generated through research Chairs’ collaborations. In the first two years of implementing ORTARChI, the DSTI, NRF, IDRC and OATF’s investment of ZAR60 million has leveraged an additional ZAR200 million across all the partners.

Sustainability is also supported by the long-term nature of the investment: each research Chair is funded for a minimum of five years with the possibility of funding extension to 15 years. Such a long-term investment allows for other forms of sustainability through the development of capacity and capabilities, in particular interdisciplinary research areas; the production of Master’s and PhD graduates; and support for postdoctoral Fellowships and early career researchers. This may be considered a substantive contribution to science in and for Africa.

From the beginning, the ORTARChI call for proposals was structured to support ownership of research agendas. It required universities and Chairholders to align the research topics to institutional research, national, regional and/or continental priorities. This sense of ownership is tangible among the research Chairs, who give expression in a variety of ways to produce knowledge that is of direct relevance to the most pressing challenges across the continent.

Two examples from research Chairs located at universities in Tanzania illustrate this point:

• Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology (NM-AIST)

Prof Hulda Swai’s vision is to contribute to anti-malarial drug discovery at the intersection of indigenous knowledge systems and nanotechnology. She is utilising the Chair to support and supervise postgraduate students from the East African Community more broadly to look at the ways herbs and nanotechnology can be used to produce anti-malarial drugs on the continent.

• Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA)

Prof Gerald Misinzo’s research is on infectious diseases, with a specific focus on collaborating with communities to respond quickly, effectively and appropriately to outbreaks – by getting people on the ground; rapidly diagnosing the nature of the outbreak; and providing governments with real-time information and advice on containment measures.

Initial benefits of ORTARChI

The ORTARChI has made significant strides the advancement of Africa’s research and innovation landscape. These achievements align closely with the objectives of AU Agenda 2063 and STISA 2024, which prioritise capacity building and research excellence across the continent. At the core of this progress are the research Chairs, whose contributions have resulted in impactful research outputs, strategic partnerships, and the mentorship of emerging scholars. Their work has generated valuable knowledge and practical solutions across various fields to enhance Africa’s presence in global research. Highlighted here are key outputs from publications, policy impacts, and innovations to mentorship initiatives that showcase the initiative’s broad impact on developing a sustainable, competitive research ecosystem for Africa.

Time, trust-building, open communication and humility are core ingredients

Important lessons have been learned about partnering for such an innovative initiative, especially for one which represents such a radical departure from the way funding arrangements are usually designed.

Prime amongst these lessons is the need for time and the building of trust, especially during the early stages – to generate new ideas, negotiations, and to shift the prevailing mindsets of all involved, both within the NRF and between the NRF and its sister councils in the SGCI. For example, it was necessary to get everyone on the same page to understand the difference between funding a research Chair versus a normal research programme or project – with the former being understood as a long-term strategic investment linked to social and economic impact. As such, a research Chair comes with particular requirements, such as the need to release the Chairs from certain responsibilities, such as teaching. This required considerable negotiation, which took more time than originally anticipated. In fact, it took five years between the announcement of the Chairs as a possibility to the first disbursement of funds. What it did mean, however, is that since the launch of the research chairs in 2020, very few challenges have been experienced because the fundamentals have been in place and the host institutions have been clear on what is expected of them for the initiative to succeed.

Open and honest communication between the partners, and a good dose of humility and humanity, have also been essential elements in the success of the Initiative. Taking different cultural, organisational, and personal contexts, requirements, and values into account, and working collaboratively in the spirit of learning from one another, have contributed to the smooth running of the partnerships.

Leveraging existing strengths in research collaboration and excellence

Another lesson learnt is that it was important for the initiative to be designed in such a way that it supports the research focus areas aligned to university research development plans and AU Agenda 2063. This empowers the research Chairs and their host institutions to define research priorities that are relevant to their countries and regions, and to produce the kinds of knowledge appropriate to addressing these challenges.

At the same time, an important part of the success of ORTARChI is that it has been built on the basis of national and regional research collaborations and areas of research excellence that were already in existence in the participating countries – fertile ground that could easily be further developed.

The expansion and deepening of the various levels of partnership – between the NRF, the science granting councils, and the Global North funders, as well as those between the Chairs and their scholarly networks – is contributing to the continued development of a research ecosystem across the continent. These partnerships are breaking down traditional siloes and enabling all involved to work synergistically together to overcome challenges. It is also creating a grassroots foundation within the participating science systems to leverage the successes of the work of the Chairs to advocate to national governments about the importance of investing in science and to offer strategic direction in this regard.