April (2010)

Contents

22 April 2010 - Call for Papers: Second Science with Africa Conference

The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa will host the Second Science with Africa Conference from 2-4 June, 2010, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The event is entitled: Science, Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

Abstract

The conference will explore tools and measures to build the necessary human capital, STI infrastructure, financial instruments, strategies targeting under represented groups (e.g. youth and women) and international collaboration for promoting innovation and entrepreneurship for economic and social transformation in Africa. Special attention will be placed on measures for stimulating the private sector and academia to play a key role in innovation and entrepreneurship as well as on legal and regulatory agencies to create a conducive environment within which innovation and entrepreneurship flourishes. Specific issues to be discussed include intellectual property protection, innovative investment tools, strategies for human capital development (both for R&D performance and entrepreneurial activities) and use of networks and collaborations to promote innovation and entrepreneurship.

Call for Papers

The papers should focus on Africa in the topics specified below:

Policies: Papers could address policy and strategies for stimulating R&D performance, emergence of entrepreneurial institutions and innovation in industry. These could address protection of intellectual property and increasing Africa?s share of global patents, university-industry collaborations, technology transfer, diffusion of technology to and promoting innovation at the grassroot level, engineering and entrepreneurship,, existence and use of technology standards and regulatory agencies to promote innovation and entrepreneurship.

Enabling environment for Innovation: Institutional framework (national and regional Innovation systems); implicit policies to strengthen linkages between NIS and RIS, national technology policy instruments, legal and regulatory frameworks for governing innovation and entrepreneurship, enabling intellectual property right regimes as a stimulus to local inventive and innovative activities.

Financing innovation: Papers may address innovative financial instruments that foster innovation and entrepreneurship. They could also address ways for increasing financial resources for start-up, R&D, technology acquisition and transfer and for expansion though commercial and development banks, venture capital and industrial financing firms. They could also look at ways of using of intellectual assets (for example, patents) as collateral, promoting public-private partnerships investments in innovation and commercialisation of R&D, patent registration and creation of companies.

Innovative strategies for technology commercialisation in Africa: Papers in this areas could focus on national and institutional lessons and experiences in commercialising R&D outputs of universities and other R&D institutions; policies, measures and incentives for technology transfer, key challenges and opportunities faced by technology transfer offices and skills and management experiences in diffusing and commercializing public goods, technology transfer mechanisms in the private sector, access to patented knowledge for innovation and innovative public-private partnerships for technology commercialisation .

The paper can be tailored to fall under the following themes or tracks:

Science, technology and innovation policies
Energy, water, transport and infrastructure
Agriculture, health and life science
Climate change in Africa
Intellectual property rights and technology transfer
Information and Communication Technologies
Innovation and entrepreneurial capacities
STI capacity building among target groups women, youth and immigrants

The papers may provide some emerging global/regional or national trends in terms of technologies, innovation, policies and strategies, suggest ways in which Africa can promote innovation and entrepreneurship in the sector or issue of interest and potential benefit. National and regional experiences are encouraged.

Format Requirements

Submissions should be no more than 4000 words. The cover page should include: title, authors and affiliation, e-mail address of contact author and an abstract describing the contributions. Abstracts should not exceed 150 words

All manuscripts will be reviewed by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa on their quality and relevance for the conference. Accepted papers will be published in the conference proceedings. Authors of accepted papers may be supported to participate in the conference.

Key Dates

Deadline for submission of papers and author profile: 30 April 2010 Notification due: 15 May 2010

Papers Submission

See http://www.uneca.org/sciencewithafrica/ or write to swa@uneca.org.

22 April 2010 - Report on Climate Change Consultative Workshop

The International Council for Science's Regional Office for Africa, and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa held a consulatative workshop on climate change in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia between 17-19 March, 2010. For the full report from this meeting, click here (pdf 818KB).

22 April 2010 - AU-TWAS Young Scientists Award

For more information, please download the leaflet (pdf 40KB) and application form (pdf 196KB).

20 April 2010 - 2010 ANDI Stakeholders' and High-Level Meeting

Registration for the third ANDI Stakeholders and High Level Meeting is now open. Please register for ANDI 2010 by navigating to www.amiando.com/ANDI_registration.html. This year's event will take place at the United Nations Office in Nairobi, Kenya, from the 10-15 October, 2010.

The meeting will provide a forum for all stakeholders to discuss progress made towards the implementation of the ANDI strategic business plan. Specific meeting objectives include:

• Launch of the ANDI Governing Board, and Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee to oversee ANDI implementation.
• Launch of 1st call for applications for ANDI projects.
• Provide a forum for high level discussion to support ANDI implementation.
• Formalise the use of the ANDI annual stakeholders meeting as a forum for dialogue and exchange in translational innovation research in Africa.

As with previous years, ANDI are inviting submissions of research abstracts for oral and poster presentations during the meeting, and for inclusion in the programme book. Due to the high interest in ANDI meetings, we encourage you to register as soon as possible. Registration will close on 2 May 2010. A limited number of participants will be supported on a first come first served basis.

Who should attend?

African institutions and researchers, ministries of health and science and technology, science academies, policy makers, donor agencies, NGOs, international organisations, Africans in the diaspora, health product manufacturers and anyone interested in supporting R&D in Africa.

For further information and to complete the registration form, please click here. For more information, please contact Ms Socorro Alias.