AAS here refers to the African Academy of Sciences — a pan-African
honorific science academy headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya — not the American Astronomical
Society, which uses the same three-letter initialism. This guide covers the African Academy
of Sciences’ former research-funding implementation arm, AESA (Alliance for Accelerating
Excellence in Science in Africa), and the two flagship programmes most research
administrators encounter under that name: DELTAS Africa and Grand Challenges Africa.
AESA is a useful case study for research administrators specifically because its
recent history is not tidy: the platform that launched and ran DELTAS Africa and Grand
Challenges Africa from 2015 is not the organisation that runs them today. Getting the
current operational picture right — who to actually contact, whose eligibility rules
currently govern an award — matters more here than in most funder profiles.
What AESA Was
The Alliance for Accelerating Excellence in Science in Africa (AESA) was established in
2015 as a joint platform of the African Academy of Sciences (AAS) and the African Union
Development Agency-NEPAD (AUDA-NEPAD), with initial seed funding from the Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, and the UK Department for International Development
(DFID, now part of the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, FCDO). AESA was
designed as an implementation and grant-management platform — the mechanism through which
international funders could channel money into Africa-led research programmes with an
African institutional home, rather than administering African-focused grants directly from
London or Seattle.
AESA, based in Nairobi, hosted a portfolio of programmes beyond the two covered in depth
below, including H3Africa (Human Heredity and Health in Africa, a genomics research
initiative), CIRCLE (Climate Impacts Research Capacity and Leadership Enhancement), and
Good Financial Grant Practice (GFGP), a certifiable standard for grant financial management
by African institutions.
DELTAS Africa
DELTAS Africa (Developing Excellence in Leadership, Training and Science in Africa) funds
African-led research consortia working on health and development challenges, using a
“hub and spoke” model: a lead African institution (the hub) with established research-
management capacity partners with institutions in other African countries (the spokes),
distributing funding, equipment access, and mentorship outward rather than concentrating it
at a single well-resourced site.
- Phase I (2015–2022): approximately USD 100 million, funded jointly by
the Wellcome Trust and DFID/FCDO, supporting 11 research consortia. - Phase II (2023–2027): launched March 2023 with approximately USD 70
million in funding across 14 consortia spanning 36 African countries.
The consortium/hub-and-spoke structure is itself worth noting for research
administrators evaluating comparable capacity-building mechanisms: it is a deliberate
alternative to the single-PI R01-style award, built around institutional capacity transfer
as an explicit funding objective rather than a side effect of collaboration.
Grand Challenges Africa
Grand Challenges Africa (GC Africa) launched in February 2016 as a competitive grant
facility supporting early-stage, high-risk/high-reward innovations addressing African
health and development challenges — the African-led affiliate of the broader Grand
Challenges global network originated by the Gates Foundation. It was established jointly
by AUDA-NEPAD, the AAS, the Gates Foundation, DFID, and the Wellcome Trust, with an initial
funding facility in the low millions of USD for competitive research grants aimed
specifically at African investigators and innovators.
The 2021 Governance Crisis and the Move to the Science for Africa Foundation
In 2021, the AAS experienced a governance crisis serious enough that several major
funders — including the Gates Foundation and Sweden’s Sida — closed or wound down their
grant agreements with the Academy rather than continue routing programme funding through
it. Sida’s support for Grand Challenges Africa formally ended July 31, 2021, as part of a
broader move by funders to shift AESA’s programme portfolio out from under the AAS
entirely.
The result was the creation of a new, independent Nairobi-based organisation, the
Science for Africa Foundation (SFA Foundation), which absorbed AESA’s
major programmes — DELTAS Africa, Grand Challenges Africa, and H3Africa among them — and
hired a substantial share of former AESA/AAS programme staff. DELTAS Africa Phase II
(2023–2027, described above) was launched and is administered under the SFA Foundation, not
the AAS.
What This Means for Research Administrators Today
Three practical points follow from the transition above:
- Programme correspondence and current eligibility rules for DELTAS Africa and
Grand Challenges Africa should be verified against the Science for Africa Foundation,
not the AAS — an institution citing AAS/AESA as the current administering body in
a proposal or subaward agreement is citing an outdated institutional home for these two
specific programmes. - The African Academy of Sciences itself still exists as a pan-African
honorific scientific academy and a member of the International Science Council — the 2021
crisis affected its role as a funding-implementation platform, not its continued existence
as a membership academy recognising African scientific achievement. - Due-diligence documentation for a subaward or consortium agreement
involving either programme should reflect the current administering entity (SFA Foundation)
in its institutional-capacity and governance sections, since that is the entity actually
holding the funder relationship, disbursing funds, and setting current reporting
requirements.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is AAS the same as the American Astronomical Society?
No. The initialism AAS is used by two unrelated organisations: the African Academy of
Sciences (a Nairobi-headquartered pan-African science academy, the subject of this guide)
and the American Astronomical Society (a US professional society for astronomers). Context
— African research funding versus astronomy — is the only reliable disambiguator, since
both organisations use the bare initialism in their own communications.
What does AESA stand for?
AESA stands for the Alliance for Accelerating Excellence in Science in Africa, the
research-funding implementation platform established in 2015 by the African Academy of
Sciences and AUDA-NEPAD. Its major programmes have since transferred to the Science for
Africa Foundation (see above).
Who currently funds and administers DELTAS Africa?
DELTAS Africa Phase II (2023–2027) is administered by the Science for Africa Foundation,
funded primarily by the Wellcome Trust and the UK’s FCDO. It is not currently administered
by AESA or the AAS.
Is Grand Challenges Africa part of the global Grand Challenges network?
Yes — it is the Africa-focused affiliate programme within the Grand Challenges network
originated by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, tailored to African-led health and
development innovation, and, like DELTAS Africa, is now administered by the Science for
Africa Foundation rather than AESA/AAS.
What is the “hub and spoke” model used by DELTAS Africa?
It is a consortium funding structure in which one well-resourced African lead
institution (the hub) receives and distributes funding, equipment access, and mentorship to
partner institutions in other African countries (the spokes), with capacity transfer to the
spokes treated as an explicit funding objective rather than an incidental benefit of
collaboration.
Related CASRAI Resources
For a different, infrastructure-focused pan-African initiative — not a funding
implementation platform — see CASRAI’s
African Open Science Platform
entry. For the general funding-lifecycle and international-funder context this guide sits
within, see the
Grants Management pillar. For the broader landscape
of national and multinational research funders research administrators track alongside
country-specific agencies, see CASRAI’s guides on
Horizon Europe and EU research
funding and the
Canadian Tri-Agency research
funding system.
