Malawi through the National Commission for Science and Technology (NCST) in collaboration with other partners is set to launch the Grand Challenges Malawi initiative which among others seeks to boost domestic investment in research and innovations.
The program which is set to be launched at BICC in Lilongwe this coming Wednesday, 30 August, 2023, also seeks to promote collaboration among researchers and innovators.
Speaking to reporters today, NCST Acting Director General, Gift Kadzamira, said the grand challenges initiative will help the country to come up with innovations and research that will help to solve issues of humanitarian crisis.
According Kadzamira, the event will help to expand the frontiers of human knowledge, tackle important problems related to energy, health, education, the environment, national security and global development.
“The strategy will support the most creative scientists in Malawi to collaborate with their partners in Africa and globally, to implement research that fosters innovation in solving the most critical development challenges in Malawi and Africa.
“It is also expected to broaden collaboration on research and development funding for ground-breaking innovative research projects,” said Kadzamira.
Kadzamira also noted that the grand challenges initiative will be implemented through four models, first being matched funding where funders commit matched funding on a 50:50 basis and support inception of the programme to enable its kick off.
After launching the initiative, Malawi will be having access to resources through the initiative as well as intellectual capital from other grand challenges experts.
The Grand Challenges is an initiative which provides grants to researchers and innovators. Initially, it used to be just on health issues but now has expanded to others sectors such as agriculture, ICT, environment humanitarian crisis.
Malawi has selected humanitarian crisis as its first priority area to solve Cylone Freddy challenge.
