Since its introduction at the end of February 2022, the number of active members on Utafiti Africa, UA’s research funding opportunities portal, has continued to rapidly grow, from 260 active members at the end of March to 480 by the end of June. The largest number of active users are in East and West Africa (see below) with Kenya and Nigeria dominating.
Since February, 225 opportunities have been posted on the portal, with 139 currently open. The medical sciences dominate the available opportunities, accounting for just under 50 percent, followed by the biological sciences. Interestingly (or sadly) nearly all the opportunities are from funding sources outside the continent.
Utafiti Africa is entering its next phase of development through the introduction of self-paced, video-on demand, training programmes covering the full spectrum of research support from grant proposal writing at the start of the research process, to research output communication, for example, how to write effective policy briefs. The first courses are expected to be online by the end of July.
Utafiti Africa remains a free to use portal until the end of 2022, after which it shall transition to an institutional, low-cost, subscription-based model.