RAFIKI: EU-Africa Research Infrastructure Alliance to Foster Infectious Disease research, Knowledge sharing and Innovation

Funding programme: Horizon Europe

Budget: 1,5 Million Euro

Duration: 3 years (January 2025 - December 2027)

Coordinator: EU-OPENSCREEN

Project Partners: H3D Foundation, University of Dundee, University of Ghana, Kenya Medical Research Institute, Stellenbosch University, University of Cape Town, University of Zambia, Medicines for Malaria Venture Fondation 

EU-OPENSCREEN is coordinating the RAFIKI project and leads the work packages on community building, outreach and training. The RAFIKI consortium will support capacity building for early drug discovery in Africa with a focus on infectious diseases (e.g., malaria, tuberculosis). Sub-Saharan Africa is disproportionately burdened by such diseases yet lacks a critical mass of appropriately skilled scientists and access to general infrastructure, enabling technology platforms and expertise for drug discovery research. RAFIKI will leverage existing collaborations within the consortium to build the knowledge and technical capacities of research institutions across Africa. RAFIKI will establish regional training hubs in South, East and West Africa to support local capacity/skillset building for early-/mid-career researchers via bidirectional scientific training visits, mentorships,regional in-person workshops and online training courses. To establish the requisite infrastructure for future drug discovery R&I, knowledge and procedures will be shared for compound library curation at partner institutions (i.e., workflows, open database creation, library sharing capabilities), and data management capacities will be bolstered using the Collaborative Drug Discovery (CDD) Vault. To secure funding beyond the project lifetime, the consortium will liaise with relevant industrial actors and potential public/private funders.