Academia Partnerships Africa-France Programme (3rd Edition)

Financed by the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs (MEAE) via the Agency franchise de development (AFD), the PeA is in line with France’s political will to double the partnerships between African and French higher education and research institutions and rounds off the policy of welcoming African students in France.

Objectives

• The projects should help develop a priority socioeconomic sector for the country that is lacking skilled personnel, and whose existing training capacity is insufficient with regard to job offerings. They endeavor to:
  • support quality job-oriented training (including dual degrees, joint degrees, and engineering programmes) across all levels;
  • Bachelor’s level: create and strengthen co-constructed training with socioeconomic actors, based on innovative and relevant educational approaches with respect to the target audience;
  • Master’s level: offer attractive national and regional programmes in partnership with French institutions;
  • PhD level: enhance the institution’s scientific potential by increasing the number of PhD students completing a joint thesis with French laboratories, and more broadly strengthening scientific partnerships.

Aims

• The Academia Partnerships Africa-France programme is in keeping with a two-pronged effort focusing on capacity building for African institutions and outreach for French institutions. It aims to:
  • offer African students the ability to find, within their country or region and beginning at the Bachelor’s level, quality training that meets social and economic needs;
  • support French higher education and research actors in developing partnerships, especially in sectors that are essential for the economies of the countries concerned, in collaboration with French enterprises established locally, as the case may be
  • enable mobility for students and teachers between French and African higher education and research institutions, in both directions.

Funding Information

• The maximum amount of the grant awarded to each selected as part of the PeA3 call for proposals is 3 million euros.
• The minimum amount is 1.5 million euros.
• The selected projects will be supported for 54 months.

Eligible Projects

• The Academia Partnerships Africa-France programme supports projects that:
  • are led by French and African higher education and research institutions engaged in a strategic partnership to boost and implement sustainable higher education training programmes delivered in Africa;
  • target a priority field for the socioeconomic development of the country or region, and where the training capacity is insufficient with respect to employment capacity;
  • help build the African institution’s capacities and skills in managing this training programme;
  • explicitly promote gender equality in terms of access and success;
  • anticipate the priorities of the academic and financial sustainability of the training partnership.

Eligibility Criteria

• Each project applying for a partnership for the PeA programme:
  • Is jointly coordinated by a higher education and research institution from an African country eligible for PeA3 and by a French higher education and research institution, potentially joined by other partnering higher education and research institutions from France; the public and private institutions involved are non-profit and are not recognized as an enterprise in the sense of European regulations for state aid to research, development, and innovation. Public higher education institutions (universities, Public Scientific, Cultural, or Professional Institutions (EPSCP), etc.) are not considered enterprises under European regulation. Other entities are asked to complete an activity statement form;
  • Targets a sector of activity that is relevant for the sustainable development of the country and even the region;
  • Proposes a suitable and ambitious response to the objectives of the call for proposals.

For more information, visit AFD.