Deadline: 05 June, 2020

The National Research Foundation (NRF) South Africa invites applications for the Covid-19 Africa Rapid Grant Fund (RGF).

The RGF seeks to contribute to the African regional and continental response to the Covid-19 pandemic; support knowledge generation and translation to inform diagnostics, prevention, and treatment of Covid-19 on the continent; strengthen African regional and continental science engagement efforts in response to the Covid-19 pandemic; and, leverage existing, strong, multilateral collaborations in support of Africa’s consolidated response to the Covid-19 pandemic and attract new collaborations from international partners.

Benefits

• The RGF has initial total funding of up to $4.75 million, with scope for additional funding from international funders and some SGCs
• A grant recipients’ workshop will be hosted after 24 months following commencement of funded projects, to provide an opportunity for evaluation and learning amongst grant recipients and funding partners
• The RGF will be allocated as follows across the three strands:
  • Research strand (70 percent)
  • Science engagement: Call to science and health journalists and communicators (20 percent)
  • Science engagement: Call to science advisers (10 percent)

Eligibility

• Applicant organisations should serve citizens in the following countries: Botswana, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and/or Nigeria
• National academies of science and national Young Academies of Science across all the 17 countries
• All organisations that receive a grant must make the coverage or products they produce with these funds freely available to the public and, where appropriate, registered under an Open Access license
• Funds will not be made available to individuals and for-profit entities
• The maximum period of funding is 24 months
• Funding decisions in the three strands will be made in consideration of the following:
  • Peer review and evaluation outcome
  • Geographical and linguistic balance
  • Gender and diversity considerations (diversity in distribution of funds considering women applicants, people living with disabilities, and first responders to Covid-19, as principal investigators)
  • Diversity in teams and in proposed content/approach will be taken into consideration as part of the above point

To apply and for more information, click here.

Photo source: Catalyze