ESA EO AFRICA R&D Facility, in collaboration with the African Union Commission (AUC), announce:
Call for African-led Training Material Design
Related to the themes: EO for managing water scarcity and safeguarding food security in Africa.
Introduction
EO AFRICA R&D Facility is the flagship initiative of ESA EO AFRICA with overarching goals of enabling an active research community and promoting creative innovation processes for the continuous development of African EO capabilities. The Facility offers a cloud computing infrastructure for the researchers (Innovation Lab), supports African–European research tandems, and delivers a range of collaborative capacity development activities (Space Academy) and initiatives between the African and European research communities based on a comprehensive review of African EO research challenges.
Besides a research call, which focuses on research activities to be jointly undertaken by African and European universities, this call is launched related to the development of training materials. The training materials are expected to support/contribute to EO-curricula at African Universities.
The Faculty of Geo-information Science and Earth Observation (ITC) of the University of Twente will support the development of the materials scientifically and technically (including a 1-week workshop at ITC premises in Enschede, The Netherlands). The Facility will cover separately the cost of 2 persons to attend a 1-week workshop at ITC (i.e. 1 month after the beginning of the activity).
Objective
Call for Development of Training Materials
The training kit, which must be self-contained and with all components copyright-free, will be part of the EO AFRICA RDF Digital Campus. The kit must be accompanied by all the necessary digital or video resources in addition to data, background information, student worksheets, and a reading list. Invited course developers will get access to all materials (in Moodle) already developed in the context of EO AFRICA RDF.
The training materials must be original and written in English. Training packages will ideally have to become part of an MSc degree curriculum. The first run of the course has to be given to university students.
Applications are welcome from any country in Africa.
Application Criteria
Project proposals shall meet the following criteria:
- The training kit must be proposed by an African University or Entity with a training mandate.
- The curriculum must cover an Earth Observation topic related to Water and Food Security.
- Training kit should be completed within 12 months.
- The proposed training kit should be part of an existing (MSc) degree programme.
- The proposed plan should be accompanied by a detailed budget with clear timelines.
Funding and Benefits
The EO AFRICA R&D Facility will provide the selected proposals with:
- A budget of up to 5,000 EUR to cover development activities during the project period (max. 12 months), such as personnel costs, fieldwork and data collection.
- 1-week curriculum development workshop at ITC premises in Enschede, The Netherlands for 2 persons (planned date 11-15 November 2024).
- Scientific support and advice by senior academic staff of the EO AFRICA R&D Facility consortium.
- Access to the EO AFRICA Space Academy and its Digital Campus for capacity and knowledge development activities, such as online courses, webinars, and face-to-face training events on topics related to EO, cloud computing, food security, and water scarcity.
- Integration into the EO AFRICA Network for international scientific networking, collaboration, and visibility.
Proposal Submission
The call is announced on 1st of July 2024. The deadline for submitting a full proposal is Sunday 31 August 2024, 23:59 CET.
The proposal submission shall be fully completed in all parts according to the provided template and duly signed by the authorized representative.
Proposals shall be submitted as a single PDF document together with all supportive documents (e.g., CVs, support letters) to ESA through EO AFRICA R&D Facility via e-mail to: TMproposals@eoafrica-rd.org
Evaluation
Proposals will be evaluated by an expert committee with members delegated by ESA, AUC, EO AFRICA R&D Facility. The following criteria will be considered:
- scientific and pedagogic merit (30%),
- relevance to enhance knowledge and skills in EO (15%),
- relation to labour market needs (10%),
- developers’ qualifications based on CVs (10%),
- detailed description and justification of budget allocation (20%). Eligible costs can be among others personnel, fieldwork and cost for data collection.
The applicants will be informed about the result of the selection in an e-mail, and the list of awarded projects will be published on the EO AFRICA R&D website on 9 September 2024.
The scientific content and the exact of budget for each selected project proposal will be finalized in agreement with the EO AFRICA R&D Facility and will be authorized by ESA.
Relevant Links
EO AFRICA R&D website: https://www.eoafrica-rd.org/
EO AFRICA website: https://eo4society.esa.int/eo-africa/
Important Dates
| Open Call | 1 July 2024 |
| Submission of Proposals | 31 August 2024, 23:59 CET |
| Communication of Selection Results | 9 September 2024 |
| Start of activity | 1 October 2024 |
| Workshop | 11-15 November 2024 |
| Submission of training package | 1 November 2025 |
| Course delivered | 1 March 2026 |
Contact
Any questions relating to the call should be sent through e-mail to TMproposals@eoafrica-rd.org, we will try to answer within 2 (two) working days before the submission deadline.