Leading Integrated Research for Agenda 2030 in Africa (LIRA 2030)

The programme aims to foster research collaboration primarily among early career scientists based in Africa with no more than 10 years’ work experience following their PhDs, or equivalent research experience. A particular emphasis is on ensuring participation of low-income countries (based on OECD ODA’s ranking) in research collaboration.

The five-year research funding programme seeks to increase the production and use of solution-oriented, contextualized and policy-relevant knowledge on sustainable development in cities across Africa. The distinctive feature of the LIRA programme is that it promotes transdisciplinary (TD) research, which is a collaborative mode of knowledge production that is oriented towards specific societal challenges and integrates knowledge and perspectives from different scientific disciplines and non – academic stakeholders.

Through knowledge co-production, the LIRA programme seeks to grasp the complexity of urban challenges, to take in account the diversity of scientific and societal views of the problems, and to increase the use of the scientific evidence as a basis for urban policy development and practice.

To achieve its objectives, the LIRA programme supports African early career scientists to lead collaborative research projects that explore new approaches to re-thinking urban futures in Africa, in partnership with local authorities, communities, industry and government.

The LIRA 2030 programme supports its participants not only through grants, but also through training workshops, annual research forums and leadership and career advancement.

Training activities on integrated research

To achieve its objectives, the programme will provide training activities to strengthen scientific capacity in Africa to apply novel methodologies on co-design and co-production, and other relevant approaches required for undertaking high quality integrated research. Each training will also include modules on proposal development and science communication.

To identify participants for training, open calls for pre-proposals are launched. Representatives of successful pre-proposals are invited to participate in training workshops, following which participants are given 2-3 months to develop full proposals. Successful full proposals will receive 2-year research grants (see below). The training is an integral part of the grants in order to ensure that early career scientists have the necessary skills and knowledge to develop integrated research proposals and undertake this type of research. The first training workshop took place on 3-7 October 2016 in Nairobi 2016. The second training event took place in Kampala, at Makerere University, on 28 August- 1 September 2017.

In total, three training workshops will take place during the course of the programme. These will be delivered by ISC in partnership with ISC ROA and NASAC and other relevant institutions in Africa.

Collaborative research grants

The programme will provide two-year collaborative research grants (90 000 EUR each/2years) to foster research collaboration on global sustainability at the regional level by linking early career scientists across disciplines and countries. These grants will also support research co-design and co-production with stakeholders.

Only participants of the training activities on integrated research (see above) will be eligible to apply for the grants.

After 5 years, the programme aims to consolidate a network of over 30 integrated research projects on global sustainability. The research produced by these projects should provide the evidence and create tools to support decision-making on complex sustainability challenges in Africa. The knowledge will also be used to inform intergovernmental policy processes (e.g. Agenda 2030, the Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction, Habitat III, IPCC and others).

Two Africa-based institutions (NASAC and ISC ROA), will be managing the research funding scheme.

Annual Research Forums

The programme will organize annual research forums to foster collaboration and networking between the supported research projects. Projects’ representatives will be invited to attend these events to share their results and experience with their peers. These events are expected to promote scientific exchanges and forge new research collaboration among projects. To foster cross-regional collaboration and with non-academic stakeholders, representatives from other relevant global research projects, decision makers and practitioners will also be invited to attend. The events will also include capacity building activities to strengthen projects’ science communication and science advice to governments skills.

In total, three annual open research forums are planned to take place during the programme, organized by ISC ROA in partnership with the ISC and NASAC.

Leadership and career advancement

The programme will also provide international career development opportunities for the early career scientists supported by the programme by nominating them for international scientific committees and conferences, working groups, and inter-governmental policy processes.

Call for pre-proposals

Over the course of the programme, a total of three calls for pre-proposals were launched.

The first call focused on understanding the “Energy-Health-Natural Disasters” nexus in the urban context in Africa.

The second call was on Advancing the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 11 on cities in Africa.

The third call was on Pathways towards Sustainable African Urban Development.

To oversee the implementation and strategic development of the LIRA 2030 programme, an advisory committee was appointed in June 2016. This committee includes scientists from Africa, stakeholder representatives and leadership representatives of all partners involved:

• Cheikh Mbow – Executive Director: START International Inc.
• Nelson Sewankambo – Professor of Medicine and Principal, Makerere University College of Health Sciences, Uganda
• Nick Perkins – Director, SciDev.Net
• Peggy Oti-Boateng – Senior Programme Specialist for S&T and Coordinator ANSTI, UNESCO MSRO for Southern Africa
• Samuel Babatunde-Agbola – Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Faculty of the Social Sciences University of Ibada, Nigeria
• Shuaib Lwasa – Chair of the IRDR Science Committee, Department of Geography, Makerere University, Uganda
• Susan Parnell – Executive of the African Centre for Cities, Department of Environmental and Geographical Sciences, University of Cape Town, South Africa, former member of the Urban Health and Well-being Science Committee
• Elvin Nyukuri – early career scientist, University of Nairobi, Kenya, Centre for Advanced Studies in Environmental Law and Policy, College of Humanities and Social Sciences
• Heide Hackmann (ex-officio) – ISC Chief Executive Director
• Daniel Nyanganyura (ex-officio) – Director of ISC ROA
• Mathieu Denis (ex-officio) – ISC Science Director

The committee will meet every year to define the programme’s scientific strategy, make research funding decisions based on the review of research proposals and agree on the further development of the programme.

A management team composed of representatives of ISC, the ISC Regional Office for Africa and NASAC has been established to drive the implementation of the programme, taking into account decisions made by the advisory committee.

Since its inception in 2016, the programme has launched three open calls for pre-proposals:

1. Understanding the ‘energy-health’ and ‘health-natural disasters’ nexuses in African cities (2016);
2. Advancing the implementation of SDG11 in cities in Africa (2017); and
3. Pathways towards Sustainable Urban Development in Africa (2018).

As a result of these calls, the programme has supported 28 collaborative research projects (to the value of up to 90,000 Euro each over two years) seeking to address complex challenges in the African urban context. Each project brings together cities in at least two countries in Africa. The goal is to foster research collaboration across African research institutions and learning across cities. A particular emphasis is made on ensuring participation of low-income countries in research collaboration. Twenty-two countries in Africa are covered by the projects, including Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

The LIRA programme also provides five-days training workshops for the Principle Investigators of short-listed projects in order to build their scientific capacity to undertake TD research, to support researchers to build meaningful inter- and trans-disciplinary projects, to support the development of full proposals and to strengthen science communication skills. Three workshops have taken place: in Nairobi, Kenya, in October 2016; in Kampala, Uganda, in August 2017; and in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, in September 2018. Around 100 early-career scientists from across Africa have received training. The programme also provides TD training activities to co-investigators of the selected projects.

LIRA 2030 Africa also provides opportunities for scientific exchange and for South–South and North–South research collaboration through Annual Research Forums. Three Forums have taken place: in Abuja, Nigeria in November 2017; in Dakar, Senegal in February 2019; and in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in February 2020. Early-career scientists also have opportunities for career development through participation in international scientific committees and conferences, working groups and inter-governmental policy processes. For instance, during the 2016-2019 period, LIRA grantees were represented at the UN STI Forums, High-level Political Forums on Sustainable Development, the IPCC Cities and Climate Change Science Conference, the International Trans-disciplinary conferences and many others. Scientists had an opportunity to present their research, contribute to the dialogue, build new networks and collaborations.

• Projects funded in 2017
• Projects funded in 2018
• Projects funded in 2019

While there is a strong demand for integrated research, institutional and financial support is still insufficient, particularly in less developed countries. The 5-year programme seeks to increase global and regional institutional and financial support by engaging regional stakeholders in research, capacity building, and networking activities and by holding strategic meetings with funding agencies and key regional institutions. Therefore, if your organization is interested in supporting integrated research and associated capacity building and networking activities, please contact lira2030africa@council.science to discuss collaboration opportunities.

Below is the list of articles that have been published to date with the contribution of LIRA researchers. A number of manuscripts have been submitted for review and are yet to be published.

• Ambole, A., et al. 2019. Mediating Household Energy Transitions through Co-Design in Urban Kenya, Uganda and South Africa. Energy Research & Social Science 55(May):208–17. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2019.05.009
• Kovacic, Musango, Ambole, et al. 2019. Interrogating Differences: A Comparative Analysis of Africa’s Informal Settlements, In World Development, Vol. 122, 2019, Pp 614-727. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X19301792
• Ambole, A. 2020. Embedding Design in Transdisciplinary Research: Perspectives from Urban Africa, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Design Issues, Volume 36 | Issue 2 | Spring 2020, p.28-40, https://doi.org/10.1162/desi_a_00588
• Buyana, K., 2019. Keeping the doors open: experimenting science–policy–practice interfaces in Africa for sustainable urban development. Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, pp.1-16. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10901-019-09699-3    
• Buyana, K., Byarugaba, D., Sseviiri, H., Nsangi, G. and Kasaija, P., 2019. Experimentation in an African Neighborhood: Reflections for Transitions to Sustainable Energy in Cities. Urban Forum, Vol. 30, No. 2, pp. 191-204. Springer Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12132-018-9358-z
• Buyana, K., Lwasa, S., and Kasaija, P. 2019. Gender Ideologies and Climate Risk: How is the Connection Linked to Sustainability in an African City? International Journal of Social Ecology and Sustainable Development (IJSESD), 10(1) https://doi.org/10.4018/IJSESD.2019010102
• International Science Council (ISC), 2020. Advancing the 2030 Agenda in African cities through knowledge co-production: Urban experiments led by early-career African scientists. International Science Council, Paris. DOI: 10.24948/2020.01  
• O’Farrell, P., Anderson, P., Culwick, C., Currie, P., Kavonic, J., McClure, A., et al., 2019. Towards resilient African cities: Shared challenges and opportunities towards the retention and maintenance of ecological infrastructure. Global Sustainability (2). https://doi.org/10.1017/sus.2019.16
• Oni, T., Mogo, E., Ahmed, A., et al., 2019. Breaking down the silos of Universal Health Coverage: towards systems for the primary prevention of non-communicable diseases in Africa. BMJ Global Health 2019;4:e001717. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2019-001717    
• Oni, T., Kockat, J., et al., (2019). The healthcare community needs to champion healthy and sustainable urban living spaces. BMJ June 2019 https://bit.ly/340kfmz   
• Weimann, A. and Oni, T., (2019). A Systematised Review of the Health Impact of Urban Informal Settlements and Implications for Upgrading Interventions in South Africa, a Rapidly Urbanising Middle-Income Country. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2019, 16(19), 3608; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16193608
• Vearey, J., Luginaah, I., Magitta, NF., Shilla, DJ., Oni, T. 2019. Urban Health in Africa: a critical global health priority. BMC Public Health. 2019 Mar 25;19(1):340. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-019-6674-8  
• Ebikeme, C., Gatzweiler, F., Oni, T., Liu, J., Oyuela, A., Siri, J. Xiamen Call for Action: Building the Brain of the City-Universal Principles of Urban Health. Journal of Urban Health. 2019; 96(4):507-50. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-018-00342-0  
• Ndebele-Murisa, MR., Mubaya, CP., Pretorius, L., Mamombe, R., Iipinge, K., Nchito, W., et al. 2020. City to city learning and knowledge exchange for climate resilience in southern Africa. PLoS ONE 15(1): e0227915. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0227915
• Croese, S., Dominique, M., Macamo Raimundo, I. 2021. Co-producing urban knowledge in Angola and Mozambique: towards meeting SDG 11. npj Urban Sustainability. Article number: 8 (2021). https://www.nature.com/articles/s42949-020-00006-6
• Ambole, A., Koranteng, K., Njoroge, P., Logedi Luhangala, D. 2021. Sustainability 2021, 13(4), 2128. A Review of Energy Communities in Sub-Saharan Africa as a Transition Pathway to Energy Democracy. https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/4/2128
• Weimann, A., Oni, T. 2019. A Systematised Review of the Health Impact of Urban Informal Settlements and Implications for Upgrading Interventions in South Africa, a Rapidly Urbanising Middle-Income Country. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2019. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31561522/
• Oni, T., Mogo, E., Ahmed, A., Davies, J. 2019. Breaking down the silos of Universal Health Coverage: towards systems for the primary prevention of non-communicable diseases in Africa. BMJ Global Health 2019;4:e001717. https://gh.bmj.com/content/4/4/e001717
• Weimann, A., Nguendo-Yongsi, B., Foka, C., Waffo, U., Carbajal, P., Sietchiping, R., Oni, T. 2020. Developing a participatory approach to building a coalition of transdisciplinary actors for healthy urban planning in African cities – a case study of Douala, Cameroon. Cities & Health, DOI: 10.1080/23748834.2020.1741966. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23748834.2020.1741966
• Weimann, A., Kabane, N., Jooste, T., Hawkridge, A., Smit, W., Oni, T. 2020. Health through human settlements: Investigating policymakers’ perceptions of human settlement action for population health improvement in urban South Africa. Habitat International Volume 103, September 2020, 102203. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0197397519309427
• Vearey, J., Luginaah, I., Francis Magitta, N., Shilla, D. J., Oni, T. 2019. Urban health in Africa: a critical global public health priority. BMC Public Health. 2019 Mar 25;19(1): 340. https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-019-6674-8
• Ebikeme, C., Gatzweiler, F., Oni, T., Liu, J., Oyuela, A., Siri, J. 2019. Xiamen Call for Action: Building the Brain of the City—Universal Principles of Urban Health. Journal of Urban Health. 2019;96(4): 507–50. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11524-018-00342-0
• Oni, T., Kockat, J., Martinez-Herrera, E., Palti, I., Johns, A., Teixeira Caiaffa, W. 2019. The healthcare community needs to champion healthy and sustainable urban living spaces. BMJ June 2019. https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2019/06/24/the-healthcare-community-needs-to-champion-healthy-and-sustainable-urban-living-spaces/
• Oni, T. 2020. RICHE|AFRICA workshop on healthy cities – Cape Town workshop report. https://stias.ac.za/2020/02/richeafrica-workshop-on-healthy-cities-report-now-available/
• Oni, T. 2020. Making the ‘Urban’ Better: Planetary health conversations on building healthy sustainable cities in the era of COVID-19 and beyond… – Blog summarising discussion and participant perspectives on intersectoral planetary health strategies in Africa. https://urbanbetter.science/making-the-urban-better-planetary-health-conversations-on-building-healthy-sustainable-cities-in-the-era-of-covid-19-and-beyond/
• Marrengane, N., Croese, S. 2021. Reframing the Urban Challenge in Africa: Knowledge Co-production from the South. London and New York: Routledge. https://www.jotform.com/uploads/lira2030africa/202093774081353/4838481617719776262/Marrengane & Croese, Eds (2020)- Reframing the Urban Challenge in Africa.pdf
• Policy brief. 2018. Co-producing urban knowledge: towards meeting Sustainable Development Goal 11. Final Results Luanda. https://www.datafirst.uct.ac.za/dataportal/index.php/catalog/832 [available in English and Portuguese]
• Policy brief. 2018. Co-producing urban knowledge: towards meeting Sustainable Development Goal 11. Final Results Maputo. https://www.datafirst.uct.ac.za/dataportal/index.php/catalog/833 [available in English and Portuguese]
• Simiyu, S. N., Kweyu, R. M., Antwi-Agyei, P., Adjei, K. A. 2020. Barriers and opportunities for cleanliness of shared sanitation facilities in low-income settlements in Kenya. BMC Public Health, 20(1), 1-12. https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-020-09768-1
• Antwi-Agyei, P., Dwumfour-Asare, B., Adjei, K. A., Kweyu, R., & Simiyu, S. (2020). Understanding the barriers and opportunities for effective management of shared sanitation in low-income settlements – the case of Kumasi, Ghana. International journal of environmental research and public health, 17(12), 4528. https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/12/4528
• Tidwell, J., Chipungu, J., Ross, I., Antwi-Agyei, P., Alam, M. U., Tumwebaze, I. K.,Norma G; Cumming, O, & Simiyu, S. (2020). Where Shared Sanitation is the Only Immediate Option: A Research Agenda for Shared Sanitation in Densely Populated Low-Income Urban Settings. The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, tpmd200985. http://www.ajtmh.org/content/journals/10.4269/ajtmh.20-0985
• Buyana, K. 2019. Keeping the doors open: experimenting science–policy–practice interfaces in Africa for sustainable urban development. Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, pp.1-16. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10901-019-09699-3
• Buyana, K., Byarugaba, D., Sseviiri, H., Nsangi, G. and Kasaija, P. 2019. Experimentation in an African Neighborhood: Reflections for Transitions to Sustainable Energy in Cities. Urban Forum (Vol. 30, No. 2, pp. 191-204). Springer Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12132-018-9358-z
• Buyana, K., Lwasa, S., Tugume, D., Mukwaya, P., Walubwa, J., Owuor, S., Kasaija, P., Sseviiri, H., Nsangi, G. and Byarugaba, D. 2020. Pathways for resilience to climate change in African cities. Environmental Research Letters, 15(7). https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab7951
• Buyana, et al. (forthcoming  Book chapter, 2021). Global Norms, African Contexts: A Framework for Localizing SDGs in Cities.
• Visagie, J., Turok, I. (2020). Getting urban density to work in informal settlements in Africa. Environment and Urbanization, 13(2), 095624782090780–20. http://doi.org/10.1177/0956247820907808
• Visagie, J., Misselhorn, M., Scheba, A., Turok, I. 2020. Reconfiguring dense informal settlements is in the policy spotlight -and rightly so. Daily Maverick. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343307155_Reconfiguring_dense_informal
  _settlements_is_in_the_policy_spotlight_-and_rightly_so
• Visagie, J., Turok, I. (2020) Rural-urban migration as a means of getting ahead. Bank, LJ, Posel, D. & Wilson, F. (eds). Migrant labour after apartheid: the inside story. Cape Town: HSRC Press. 44-70. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321159397_Rural-Urban_Migration_as_a_Means_of_Getting_Ahead
• Sherbinin, A., Bowser, A., Chuang, T., Cooper, C., Danielsen, F., Edmunds, R., Elias, P., Faustman, E., Hultquist, C., Mondardini, R., Popescu, I., Shonowo, A., Sivakumar, K. 2021. The Critical Importance of Citizen Science Data. Front. Clim., 25 March 2021. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fclim.2021.650760/full

• Scientific publications under the spotlight for LIRA2030 meeting in Addis Ababa
• Nine projects led by African early-career scientists funded under the LIRA 2030 Africa programme
• LIRA2030 Annual Research Forum begins in Dakar, Senegal
• Call for scientific and non-academic reviewers for LIRA2030
• Early career scientists from Africa gather for LIRA transdisciplinary workshop in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire
• News from LIRA2030: Seedbeds of Transformation conference, South Africa
• Announcing 2018’s funded projects for the LIRA 2030 programme
• Call for pre-proposals: Pathways towards Sustainable African Urban Development
• Scientific Advisory Committee of the LIRA programme meets in Lilongwe, Malawi
• INGSA-Africa Chapter Holds Pre-AMASA 13 Learning Collaborative Workshop in Abuja, Nigeria
• Call for scientific and non-academic reviewers for LIRA 2030
• Early career scientists gather for LIRA trans-disciplinary workshop in Uganda
• Call for pre-proposals: Advancing the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 11 on cities in Africa