Global Alliance Africa
This Innovate UK Global Alliance Africa 6-year (2019-2025) project funded by UK International Development aims to build new and stronger UK-African partnerships to maximise the creation of inclusive market access, funding and investment opportunities through innovation knowledge transfer between the UK, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa.
About Global Alliance Africa
The project aligns with the UK’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) objectives by building stronger local innovation ecosystems and enhanced UK-Africa collaborations that lead to self-sustaining economic growth in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa by the potential of innovation to meet current and future socio-economic challenges.
Innovate UK Global Alliance Africa will build new and stronger UK-African partnerships to maximise the creation of inclusive market access, funding and investment opportunities through innovation knowledge transfer.
Innovate UK Global Alliance Africa is a six-year project funded by UK International Development through Innovate UK (GCRF) and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO).
This Introduction to Global Alliance Africa video gives an overview of the project, its interventions, aims and objectives.
"Global Alliance Africa is a refreshing new approach harnessing the collective power of innovators in Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and the UK, to drive positive change and create value. It is focused on building long-term partnerships connecting the innovation ecosystems of these four countries, so that innovation stakeholders can come together to share knowledge, learn from each other and work together.”
— Janet Geddes, Global Director, Innovate UK
HARNESSING THE POWER OF LOCAL INNOVATION
Leveraging expertise
Place-Based Innovation (PBI) seeks to leverage UK and pan-African expertise, networks and resources in order to build capacity for local innovation ecosystem players to drive forward stronger, more sustainable and more inclusive local ecosystems. Open Innovation (OI) engages Innovate UK Business Connect’s bespoke platform to expand business-to-business partnerships, accelerate penetration of new innovation and increase supply chain robustness and diversification.
INCLUSIVE MARKET ACCESS
Funding and investment support
Collaborative R&D Funding (CR&D) focuses on leveraging existing funding in order to forge collaborative R&D partnerships in key thematic areas of mutual interest for UK-Africa businesses, innovators & researchers. Strengthening the Investment Pipeline (SIP) works collaboratively with investor and innovator communities to build capacity and establish new mechanisms in order to overcome barriers in the investment pipeline.
INNOVATION KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER
Collaboration
Innovate UK Business Connect will forge Global Innovation Networks (GIN) to facilitate UK, African and International networks to deliver collaborative research, innovation and funding solutions that address key global innovation challenges. Through Innovation Governance Knowledge Exchange (IGKE) we aim to ensure a strategic, coherent and demand-driven approach to linking African innovation policy stakeholders with their international peers, to share best practice and generate insights on how to best overcome these barriers.
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