43 pre-proposals have been submitted for the pre-proposal round of the LEAP-RE Second Call for AU-EU Collaborative Research and Innovation projects on Renewable Energy that was launched in July 2022. The applications cover some of the key thematic priorities of LEAP-RE and include the following topics:
- Water – Energy – Food nexus
- Agrivoltaic solutions
- Green hydrogen
- Mini and micro-grids digitalization
- Biomass transformation
24 proposals to go into the full-proposal round
The 43 applications were reviewed by a high-level panel of 18 African and European experts. This review process resulted in 24 project proposals being eligible and successful to go now into the second full-proposal round.
The 24 preselected project consortia gather 178 partners in total. Partners come from 13 African countries (Algeria, Morocco, South Africa, Tunisia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria, Uganda, Rwanda, Senegal) and 8 European countries (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Romania, Netherlands, Switzerland). As the funding agencies involved in the Call also stressed the importance of involving private companies in the proposed projects, the private sector participation is quite significant, with 37 partners.
€6 Million funding available for the projects to be selected
Nine funding organisations from Africa and Europe allocated a total joint indicative budget of approximately €4 million: the Algerian Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, the Moroccan Ministry Ministry of Higher Education Scientific Research and Innovation, the Department of Science and Innovation of South Africa, the Belgian Fund for Scientifc Research (FRS-FNRS), the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG), the French National Reasearch Agency (ANR), Project Management Juelich / Research Centre Juelich (PTJ/FZJ) in Germany, the Italian Ministry of University and Research and the Romanian Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation Funding (UEFISCDI). The European Commission is contributing to the Call with additional €2 million.
The pre-selected consortia have until 27 January 2023 to submit their full proposals. The results of the Call will be announced in March 2023.
