Application guidance notes
GCRF Africa Catalyst
Index
Introduction
Eligibility criteria
Submission deadline
Monitoring
How to apply
Assessment of applications
Contact
Introduction
Under its remit as a delivery partner for the Global Challenges Research Fund, the
Academy is pleased to launch this new capacity building programme.
GCRF Africa Catalyst is offering grants of £40,000 to organisations supporting the
engineering profession in sub-Saharan Africa working in partnership with the
engineering research, policy and business communities in the UK and sub-Saharan
Africa. The Academy is seeking a wide range of short pilot projects to run between
mid-December 2016 – mid-June 2017, with the intention to evaluate the result of
different interventions. During this pilot stage, the lead applicant must be an
organisation based in sub-Saharan Africa. Although we strongly encourage UK
partners the Academy is open to a number of different ways this partnership could
take place during this learning period. Should you wish to have introductions
made or support in any other way to help set up partnerships, the Academy
is more than happy to facilitate this.
This is a one off call, where lessons learnt and successful models will be shaping the
future of the programme; following this call, larger-scale proposals will be accepted.
Programme Objectives
The overarching aim is to ensure there is sufficient, and appropriately skilled, local
engineering capacity to participate in and drive national and regional development in
sub-Saharan Africa. GCRF Africa Catalyst helps achieve this by focusing on better
connecting Professional Engineering Institutes (PEIs), Engineering
Councils/Associations and other organisations working to strengthen engineering
capacity, to the engineering research, policy and business communities. GCRF Africa
Catalyst will support these organisations take a leadership role by working to ensure
appropriate accreditation, professionalism and opportunities for engineers nationally
and regionally. At this pilot stage, the Academy is looking for projects that are
contributing to at least one of the objectives below.
The programme’s objectives are to:
 Build engineering capacity by improving engineering education at all levels to
meet recognised international standards.
 Support the development of professional engineering
institutions/councils/associations that can effectively support the profession and
promote professionalism.
 Support the Federation of African Engineering Organizations (FAEO) in its
leadership role across the continent.
 Strengthen the evidence base for the role robust engineering institutions play in
driving development, such as mapping engineering capacity in sub-Saharan
Africa.
Eligibility criteria
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The suggested project should clearly align with the overall aims and objectives
of the scheme, however, the Academy encourages original ideas and local
solutions.
Project activities must include a budget of £40,000 delivered over a maximum
of six months.
Pilot projects must run between mid-December 2016 and mid-June
2017.
Applicants must be not-for-profit organisation based in sub-Saharan Africa*.
The lead applicant must propose a means of collaboration with at least one
partner based in the UK. A partner may also be considered as the UK institution
if it is headquartered in the UK.
*For the purposes of the programme, the Academy consider the following 49 countries
to be part of sub-Saharan Africa:
Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central
African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the
Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, The
Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Liberia, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi,
Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sao Tome
and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan,
Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Please contact Louise Olofsson if you have any question regarding your eligibility.
Submission deadline
The deadline for applications is 4.00 pm GMT on Wednesday 9 November
2016. Any incomplete applications, or applications received after this date, will
not be considered.
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Monitoring and evaluation
The Academy has a requirement of close communication, should your application be
successful. We would expect you to inform us via email should any unexpected
challenges occur and we would expect to receive brief monthly updates.
In addition, the Academy has three forms which would need to be filled in under our
online grant system:

Initiation report
A brief report to confirm that the project started and is continuing as
originally envisaged.
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Mid-term report
This is a more detailed form, where you should fill in progress against your
indicators and provide a financial report for Quarter 1. The second
payment is dependent on the submission of this report.
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Final report
This form is very similar to the mid-term report, but includes more space
for reflection of results.
There will also be an external evaluator who might be visiting you half way
through the project whom the Academy would expect you to welcome,
potentially in company with a staff member from the Academy.
Notification of outcome
All applicants should be prepared to respond to further questions between 21-25
November and will be notified of the outcome of their application on Tuesday 29
November 2016.
We expect all successful applicants to sign and return their contracts within 4
working days.
How to apply
Applications can only be submitted by an organisation based in subSaharan Africa. Applications received from a UK partner will not be considered
during the pilot grant round.
All applications must be submitted via the Academy’s online application system
(https://grants.raeng.org.uk). The author must first register with the system and
provide some basic log-in details to create a profile.
The application form has six sections and should take approximately one hour to
complete, assuming you have answered the questions offline and merely need to
enter the information, rather than compose it. The guidance notes below are
more detailed so we recommend you keep this document to hand.
The primary purpose of this application form is to identify whether the applicant
has a project plan suitable to the aims of the scheme. You will have the option to
download a pdf of your application after submission, which may be useful for
future reference.
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Please note that we do request a letter of support from your UK partner and
details of an external reference. Please notify the referee prior to giving out their
contact details.
If you have any questions concerning the application or the online application
system, please contact Louise Olofsson.
Completing the application form
After logging in to the online system and selecting the you should be presented with
the ‘Instructions’ screen. Here you will see some general instructions on how to use
the system as well as the following list of the six sections of the application form:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Contact details
Project details
Partners
Monitoring and evaluation
Budget
Reference and declaration
At any stage in the application process you can save your progress and return to the
application at a later time. You can answer the questions in any order you like so it is
possible to skip some sections and return later. It is therefore advised to view the
application early on for an indication of what is required, and you should also ensure
that you have all the necessary documentation at hand when you start completing the
application.
Please note: Applicants can only submit one application.
1. Contact details
Please provide contact details of the person responsible for the application and basic
information about the lead organisation.
2. Project details
Here you will provide the main summary details for the application, covering the
project start dates, a project summary, rationale and planned activities.
Q – Project start date: This should be in mid-December, but please use the
calendar to indicate the exact start date for your project.
Q – Project end date: This should be in mid-June, but please use the calendar to
indicate the exact end date for your project.
Q – Project summary: Outline a summary of your project, including overall goals
and details on how the project fits at least one of the objectives of GCRF Africa
Catalyst.
Q – Rationale: Provide background and justification for your project – i.e. why
did you decide on this particular intervention? Why is it needed? How did you
come up with the idea? Have you consulted with any other stakeholders? Does it
fit in with any previous activities the organisation has undertaken or wanted to
carry out?
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Q – Activities: List all activities that are planned under this project and clearly
outline how they will contribute towards the project objectives.
3. Partners
This is an opportunity for you to tell the Academy about any partners you will be
working with.
Q – Partners: We strongly advise that you collaborate with a UK based partner. Please
outline what this collaboration will look like and provide details of the partner. If you
will be working in partnership with any other African or international partners, please
indicate this as well.
Q – Letter of commitment: Please upload a letter of commitment, showing that you
have agreed to a type of partnership outlined in the question above. Letters of
commitment should be signed and submitted on the headed paper of your UK partner.
4. Monitoring and evaluation
This section is really important as it will provide a blueprint for both the Academy and
yourself on how to measure progress, and to show success, challenges and indicate if
there are changes needed for a potential up-scaled version of the project model.
Q – Outputs, outcomes and impact: List all outputs expected (changes that occur as a
direct result of the project activities), at least 3 outcomes (changes that will happen
as a result of the outputs) and the long term impact (describe how will the outcomes
lead to the impact, or overall objective of the project).
Q – Key indicators: What will you measure to see if there is any progress towards
your outputs, outcomes or impact.
Q – Data collection methods: How will you measure the above indicators?
5. Budget
Please use the budget template provided by the Academy. Clearly outline how you
would allocate up to a total of £40,000 from the Academy over a 6-month period –
showing if the funds will be spent in the first 3 months (Q1) or month 4-6 (Q2). Do
keep in mind that the first tranche of the grant is £35,000 and the second tranche,
which is dependent on a high quality mid-term report, is set to the value of £5,000.
If your project costs over £40,000 please include details on where the additional funds
are coming from.
We strongly recommend that you use the notes section to justify costs, show that you
have done cost comparisons and explain budget lines.
6. Reference and declaration
Please list at least one external reference who knows the organisation on a
professional level. If you are uncertain about whether your reference is suitable,
please do not hesitate to contact us.
Assessment of applications
Applicants will be evaluated by a specially-convened panel with expertise
spanning the breadth of engineering, professional institutes or international
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development. Each application will be assessed by a minimum of two panel
members. Applications should be understandable to the non-specialist engineer.
The panel will rank the applications, and carry out the final selection of
successful proposals.
All applications will be assessed against alignment with objectives of the scheme,
quality of applications and achievability. Please do pay attention to detail and be
clear and concise.
The application and award process:
Scheme launch
14 September 2016
Creating Partnerships
Project Design
Fill in & submit application
Reviewers going
through all applications
Opportunity to provide more
information
21-25 November
Panel meeting
Information on outcome
29 November
Signing of contracts
Grants paid
Contact
If you have any queries please contact the Programme Manager, Louise Olofsson, at
louise.olofsson@raeng.org.uk or call +44 (0) 207 766 0680.
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