Partnerships between academia and private industry in climate change research

7-8 September 2015. Bergen, Norway. CAAST-Net Plus Climate Change Stakeholder Meeting - Norway. The Research Council of Norway, a CAAST-Net Plus project partner, organised a closed meeting of CAAST-Net Plus stakeholders to discuss the project’s legacy on climate change research and innovation cooperation.

Potential for academia-private sector collaborationIn this break-out session four presentations highlighted initiatives towards establishing partnerships between academia and private industry with a view to harnessing research results through an uptake and commercialization process ranging from prototypes and patenting towards the availability of products and services to a wide range of users.

Strengthening cooperation in capacity-building initiatives in the area of climate change In this break-out session five presentations highlighted existing capacity-building initiatives in the area of climate change research. These presentations framed the points of departure of discussions on the needs, challenges, and opportunities for collaboration and synergies in this field.

Examples:

DANIDA supports 2 universities in Ghana on climate change research and in Tanzania research related to agriculture:

• University of Ghana (UG), Ghana: Trans-disciplinary Research into Climate Change Adaptation + ·Enhancing Food Production and Processing
• Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Ghana: Climate-smart Agriculture and Environmental Management (CSAEM)
• Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA), Tanzania: (a) Agricultural value chain ; (b) Market oriented Agro-ecology ; (c) Aquaculture.

SIDA (Sweden) Aalborg University and IDRC supports The AfricaLics network to build research capacity in Africa in the field of innovation and development with strong links to users – including policy makers, the private sector and increasingly also to civil society. On climate change AfriLics support the research project: Building low carbon innovation energy systems in Africa: Nigeria, South Africa (Mapungubwe), Kenya, Tanzania, Sweden, Denmark.

DANIDA funds the Innovation and Renewable Electrification in Kenya (IREK) project (an off-spring from the Globelics/AfricaLics collaboration): Aalborg University (Department of Business and Management) ; Moi University (Department of Business and Department of Engineering) ; African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS)

Extract from the presentation
Keynote Speech: Climate Change as a Global Challenge: Eystein Jansen, Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, Bergen (see in particular slide 20: sources of emissions)

Innovation Through Collaboration: towards successful academic-private sector collaborations: Six Partnership examples from Sub-Saharan Africa by Tony Mitchell Knowledge Transfer Partnership, United Kingdom

Tanzanian innovation on water-filtration system Askwar Hilonga Tanzanian innovator, Arusha, Tanzania 

Related PAEPARD blogpost: 17 June 2015. A Tanzanian chemical engineer has won the first Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation with his specialised water-filtration system.

BASE Project: Engineering education for Energy sector using eLearning: A partnership for competence development in engineering for the energy sector between Norway and Eastern Africa by Ari Mathiesen University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway

Norwegian Statoil and Dutch Shell/BG found more than 51 trillion cubic feet natural gas offshore. Transfer of knowledge is needed accumulated from Norwegian petroleum industry related universities. It includes Joint engineering and related educational programs produced as state of the art eLearning about MECHATRONICS ; DRILLING AND RESORVOIR TECHNOLOGY ; SUBSEA TECHNOLOGY  ; MANAGEMENT OF THE ENERGY INDUSTRY ; RENEWABLE ENERGY E-LEARNING TECHNOLOGY.

CIRCLE: A programme to strengthen the capacity of African researchers on the impact of climate change in Africa. by Andrew Clayton Research and Evidence Division DFID

Africa-EU STI Policy Dialogue Support