Welcome to the EURAESS Africa Quarterly Newsletter
EURAXESS Africa provides reliable news and insights about research and innovation(R&I) policies, jobs, funding and career development activities in Europe, including opportunities for international collaboration and mobility schemes. Membership is free.
In this edition, you can read about successful projects helping to preserve African languages, and discover what universities are doing to be socially responsible today and in the future. We present findings from a virtual summit on this topic and a publication by the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA), which highlight gender gaps and other areas where action is needed.
We also introduce the latest developments and background behind EU regulations on artificial intelligence(AI) and how this affects the research landscape. Our member country profile this edition introduces EURAXESS Moldova.
For other country profiles you can consult our website, clicking the tab PUBLICATIONS and then EURAXESS COUNTRIES PROFILE.
Enjoy the Autumn edition and don’t forget to spread the word about EURAXESS Africa among your friends and colleagues… Our official launch is scheduled in early 2022!
In this issue:
Dalibor P. Drljača, D.Sc.
Programme Officer
EURAXESS Africa
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The story behind Europe’s AI ambitions
The European Commission’s proposed new regulations for artificial intelligence (AI) include a clear ambition and plans to make Europe a “global hub for trustworthy AI”.EURAXESS Worldwide newsletter explores what this means and how it fits into wider digital ambitions and research policy directions.
In its proposed regulation,announced on 21 April, the Commission spells out that ‘trustworthy AI’ means safeguarding freedoms and safety while encouraging innovation, investment and commercial uptake. Ethical concerns are also raised about the way AI is developed, how data is obtained and ‘trained’ during machine-learning processes to avoid bias, and how the information is used.
As the Commission’s proposal is debated in the EU’s law-making chambers, questions about AI compliance and strategies for enforcing it are also being explored. Issues about its use in law-enforcement (e.g.facial recognition systems), credit scoring and insurance risk, as well as its potential abuses (e.g. deep fakes, scams, subverting justice and democracy) are also high on the agenda.
The EU naturally wants to capitalise on the benefits while ensuring that suitable checks and balances(standards and agreements) are in place to guide developments. Many of these challenges and opportunities are presented in a 2020 White Paper, ‘Artificial intelligence – A European approach to excellence and trust’.
Europe is betting big on artificial intelligence. There are good grounds for such optimism. The global market for AI, which includes software, hardware and services, is forecast to grow by 16.4% to $327.5 billion in 2021 and push through the $500 billion mark by 2024 thanks to a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.5%, according to IDC data.
Reaching this potential is going to take a lot of strategic planning and hard work. According to the Commission, Europe needs to increase and better coordinate public and private investment to “reap the full benefits of AI” and strengthen its position in this key enabling technology. It is why digital technology and AI feature prominently in EU research programmes and initiatives. These include Horizon Europe, the mainR&I funding programme supporting technological and societal aspects of AI development and deployment, and European Research Council grants to simulate AI-focused research centres and leadership across the EU, and beyond.
Other AI initiatives include European Innovation Council funding to help promising innovators and SMEs turn research into breakthrough innovations, and European Partnerships bringing private and public R&I partners together to tackle pressing societal challenges. For example, the AI, Data and Robotics Partnership is looking for cross-fertilisation between partners from the digitalcand space sectors/industries, thus driving development and uptake of new technologies.
Public-private partnerships (PPP) are another avenue to advance AI in and with Europe. OneAI-PPP is being set up to boost “value-driven trustworthy AI, data and robotics based on European fundamental rights, principles and values”. It brings together a range of initiatives (EurAI, CLAIRE, ELLIS, BVDV and euRobotics) covering different aspects of big data, intelligent systems, machine-learning, etc.
More details about EU projects, results and publications, including a handy CORDIS Results Pack on how AI is “turbocharging European industry”, can be found on the Commission’s dedicated AI research web-page.
Source: European Commission
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Rhodes University has collaborated with local and foreign universities in an effort to revive and preserve indigenous African languages. The project is called Baqonde and is funded by the European Union. Baqonde means “ let [them] understand” in the Nguni languages and in the context of the project it stands for‘ Boosting the use of African languages in education: a qualified, organised national development strategy for South Africa’.
This means it seeks to facilitate and promote the use of indigenous African languages as mediums of instruction at higher education institutions in South Africa, but also to advance the objectives laid out in the country’s Language Policy Framework for Public Higher Education Institutions.
South African universities involved in the project are:
- North West University
- University of KwaZulu-Natal
- University of the Western Cape
Three European institutions taking the part in the project are:
- Salamanca University (Spain)
- Trinity College Dublin (Ireland)
- University of Groningen (the Netherlands)
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The University of Pretoria and the global University Social Responsibility Network hosted from 3-5 February 2021 an international virtual summit focused on ‘ University social responsibility,priorities for the next decade’.
Health services, education, conserving and restoring the environment, rehabilitating substance users and economically supporting the disadvantaged may seem far removed from the principal functions of teaching and research, but higher education institutions are increasingly drawn to such social responsibility initiatives.
In some instances, the scale of these activities aimed at bettering the lives of surrounding communities, and society at large, are comparable to those undertaken by well-resourced commercial and governmental organisations. But universities often lack such vast resources to make a positive impact on society.
However, this does not stop socially responsible universities. They mobilise the resources and expertise they need to solve urgent and pressing problems facing their communities.
Source: University World News
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The African Research Universities Alliance,(ARUA) driven by a need to establish a culture of publishing verifiable data about African universities, has launched a report titled ‘Research profiles of ARUA universities: emerging trends 2015-2017’.
The report finds that ARUA universities’ research profiles are heterogeneous, but with some broadly similar patterns. For example, they can be described as predominantly undergraduate universities on account of the ‘shape’ of student enrolments. All of the universities, except Ibadan, have a postgraduate enrolment of lower than 40% of the total student body. It was observed that when postgraduate enrolments below master’s are excluded, the share of postgrads drops to below 30%, especially for South African universities.
Another general observation is that women academic staff are under-represented at most ARUA universities (only two reported more than 50% female staff). This trend is more pronounced in senior academic positions, where the share of women as full professors ranged from 2.5% (Addis Ababa) to 32% (University of Pretoria), but also in the lower female postgrad enrolments. According to the report, the data presents a clear picture that advancing gender equality should be an important priority for ARUA.
The latest version of this online report was released on 18 August 2021 and will be updated regularly to show ARUA’s growth and transformation.
ARUA was established in 2015 as a network of 16 leading research universities from different countries in the region. Although they come from quite different historical backgrounds, they have recently come to share a common vision which is to expand and significantly enhance the quality of research done in Africa by African researchers.
Source: ARUA
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Did you know that in September 2009 Moldova was the first country in the world to launch high-definition voice services for mobile phones? It was also the first in Europe to launch 14.4 Mbps mobile broadband nationally, now covering over 40% of the population. Moldova is ranked third in the world in terms of internet speed, according to the Net Index which covers 152 countries. It is a country with a firm vision for the digital future.
It was the first country in the Eastern Partnership to be formally ‘associated’ to the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) for research, technological development and demonstration activities (2007-2013), as well as Horizon 2020 (H2020, 2014-2020) which considerably expanded access to European research grants.
The R&I system in Moldova is represented by 61 state and private organisations, including 39 institutes and research centres, 15 higher education institutions, and seven other learning or research entities. These employ 2,707 scientific researchers, more than half of which are women (1,430).
R&D expenditure in Moldova in 2020 totalled 469.6m lei (€22.52m), the equivalent of 0.23% of the GDP, compared to 0.24 in 2019. Just over three-quarters of that was spent on applied research, 10.6% on fundamental research, and 14.2% on technological development.
Research in Moldova is primarily financed on the basis of ‘quality competition’. Funding comes from the state budget, foreign funds, companies and the NARD. The MECR is the principal R&D funding body in Moldova, consolidating different grants and types of funding and giving research more visibility within society.
As most research is performed in public universities, the majority of research jobs are also in these centres of learning. Doctoral studies are regarded as part of the student body and receive a monthly scholarship.
Source: EURAXESS Worldwide
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