Horizon 2020 ICT-39-2015 Insights and Results

23 November 2015

International Cooperation is an important principle of Horizon 2020. In the context of supporting African participation in Horizon 2020, IST-Africa provided DG CONNECT with the evidence required to justify the inclusion of ICT-39-2015 and ICT-39-2017 Calls focused on research cooperation with African in the Horizon 2002 ICT (LEIT) Work Programmes.

The ICT-39-2015 (LEIT) Call was focused on initiating collaborative research and innovation projects addressing the end-user communities in Africa in relevant thematic areas addressed by Horizon 2020 including Content Technologies and Societal Challenges.

IST-Africa actively promoted ICT-39-2015 in Africa and Europe, provided a mapping of research priorities and research capacity in IST-Africa partner countries and organised targeted Horizon 2020 Training Workshops in IST-Africa partner countries. Helpdesk support was provided to organisations preparing proposals, fine tuning ideas and looking for relevant partners to cooperate with.

The ICT-39-2015 Call was very successful - 45 proposals were submitted with 439 participations including 194 participations from Africa, of which over 78% were from IST-Africa partner countries. Thematic areas included eHealth, eAgriculture, Internet of Things, Wireless communications, Cloud Computing, Big Data, eLearning, Language technologies, Green Transport, Clean Energy, network technologies, Smart Cities and eInclusion. The proposals submitted were considered to be high quality and relevant to the focus of the call with 23 proposals over threshold.

Four projects were selected for funding with 11 African countries represented of which 6 IST-Africa partner countries are participating in all four projects - Ethiopia (3), Kenya (2), Cameroon (1), Malawi (1), South Africa (1) and Senegal (1).

• DMC-MALVEC (Development of integrated and automated multiplex vector-diagnostic platform for malaria) is focused on developing a fully integrated and automated multiplex vector-diagnostic platform (LabDisk) for monitoring malaria. The LabDisk will interface and connect with Decision Support systems. This project is lead by the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (IMBB) at the Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas, Greece with partners from Cameroon, Ethiopia, Zambia, Germany, Luxembourg, Italy, Switzerland and UK
• mHealth4Afrika is focused on co-designing an open source, multilingual mHealth platform to support quality community-based maternal and Newborn healthcare delivery at clinic level, based on end-user requirements in Southern Africa (Malawi, South Africa), East Africa (Kenya) & Horn of Africa (Ethiopia). The consortium brings together multidisciplinary expertise from seven countries: IIMC (Ireland, Coordinator), University of Gondar (Ethiopia), @iLabAfrica, Strathmore University (Kenya), Chancellor College, University of Malawi and Baobab Health Trust (Malawi), University of (Oslo Norway), Centre for Community Technologies, NMMU (South Africa) and University of Ulster (UK).
• its4land is focused on geospatial technology (including smart sketchmaps, UAVs, automated feature extraction, and geocloud services, to deliver land recording services that are end-user responsive, market driven, and fit-for-purpose) for land tenure security in East Africa. It is lead by the Department of Urban and Reiongal Planning and Geo-information Management at ITC, University of Twente (Netherlands) with partners from KU Leuven (Belgium); Bahir Dar University (Ethiopia); Westfaelische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Hansa Luftbild AG (Germany); The Technical University of Kenya (Kenya) and Institut d'Enseignement Superieur de Ruhengeri and Esri Rwanda Ltd (Rwanda).
• WAZIUP aims to develop or adapt low cost and energy efficient hardware, design and develop IoT mixed communication and networking infrastructure and offer an open source platform for developers and SME communities. IoT application domains include irrigation, livestock farming, fish farming, water, storage and logistics. The project is lead by Create-Net (Italy), with partner from France (Easy Global Market, University of Pau), Portugal (Unparallel Innovation), Germany (Innotec21), Senegal (University Gaston Bergeg de Saint Louis, Coder4Africa and CTIC Dakar), Burkina-Faso (Polytechnic University of Bobo-Dioulasso), Ghana (iSpace, Farmerline) and Togo (L'Africaine D'Architecture).