EO AFRICA R&D Facility Secures 3-Year Extension for Phase 2 by ESA
The EO AFRICA R&D Facility Consortium has announced that, after a positive evaluation of the first phase (2021-2024), the European Space Agency has granted the Facility an extension of 3 years, allowing to further pursue its R&D initiatives. The research and capacity building activities of the Facility’s first phase have successfully fostered the collaboration between ESA and the African Union Commission (AUC). They look forward to continuing their mission to enhance this partnership. In line with the first phase, the overarching goal of the Facility in this second phase will be to foster an African-European R&D collaboration, enabling an active research community and continuously develop Earth Observation (EO) capabilities in Africa.
Focusing on the general theme of water scarcity and food security, in the coming 3 years, we will:
- Deliver more f2f and on-line training, hackathons and webinars on the use of EO, and related cloud computing technology for water & food security applications to strengthen capacity development in Africa.
- organize two research calls for African-European research tandems, providing the cloud computing facility and technical support to develop, test, run, and optimize scientific workflows based on EO data to address pressing research questions in the African context.
- support the development of EO-based training materials and curricula for African Universities through a call on education.
- keep working on building a proactive African-European R&D network: the EO AFRICA community.
EO AFRICA R&D Facility Phase 2 will run from 2024 to 2027, making an exciting new chapter in our journey. They are confident that these activities will create compelling opportunities for African-European collaboration, driving innovation and growth in EO capabilities across Africa.
