Research News

The second Research Into Use (RIU) call for proposals is for the African Innovation Challenge Fund (African ICF). The purpose of the fund is to provide financial support to teams so they can take promising research, funded by DFID, to the next stage of use. The selected initiatives will contribute to RIU’s purpose by delivering significant use of Renewable Natural Resources Research Strategy (RNRRS) programme research and other natural resources research outputs for the benefit of poor men and women in different contexts.

The first RIU call issued in 2007 focused on target countries in South and Southeast Asia and the response demonstrated that there were many entry points for scaling up RNRRS research knowledge. However the subsequent lesson learning study on the Asian challenge fund process indicated that, the scope of the call may have been too broad, creating wide expectations which the challenge fund was unable to fulfill. The RIU management team have therefore decided to focus the Africa call on two key elements which we feel are critical in getting research into use and from which lessons can be drawn for decision makers. These two elements are:

• novel communication methods
• public-private partnerships

both of which can stimulate the use of natural resource technologies and processes produced by DFID research activities for the benefit of large numbers of people.

The RIU Innovation Challenge Fund Africa will focus on the following countries in sub Saharan Africa: Ghana, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, South Africa plus three Francophone countries - Senegal, Mali and Niger.

More information

• Details including guidelines and forms are available on the RIU website here
• Closing date for submission of Concept Notes: Monday, 1st September, 12 noon (GMT+1)
• Questions or queries should be directed to the RIU Grants and Policy co-ordinator Lucy Nickoll (L.nickoll@nrint.co.uk)