Tuberculosis (TB) is the single biggest infectious cause of death globally, a situation worsened by COVID-19. Revolutionary new TB triage tests are required, including at facilities where people are accessible and efficiently referable to confirmatory testing. The Cough Audio triaGE for TB (CAGE-TB) study was EDCTP2-funded to 1) collect cough sounds at people’s point-of-entry into primary care facilities (South Africa) and derive an audio classifier, 2) validate diagnostic accuracy in independent cohorts (South Africa, Uganda), and 3) deploy mixed methods research (costing, implementation science, medical anthropology) to inform design and implementation so that this classifier, which will report people as “likely TB” or “unlikely TB” for confirmatory testing, is embedded within a user-friendly mHealth app with on-device offline computation. Per the original call’s objective, CAGE-TB’s goal was to deliver an accurate validated mHealth app usable in trials assessing clinical outcomes (necessary for adoption). Uniquely, this pure mHealth innovation mitigates barriers that jeopardise target product profile criteria (e.g., reagents, cold-chain, transport, infrastructure). After CAGE-TB hired personnel, COVID-19 prevented and slowed recruitment (people had limited clinic access, recruitment interrupted by successive COVID-19 waves). Throughout this, CAGE-TB paid personnel and trainees, resulting in severe budget overruns without participant recruitment, and limited trainee progress and site visits. In 4-CAGE-TB we request essential support over two years to accomplish the original scope-of-work, ensure trainees can finish degrees and, due to the longer recruitment period, accommodate critical additional site visits. COVID-19 has only reinforced our premise: it caused TB to increase for the first time in a decade, damaged already weak facility-based triage practices, and accelerated cough classification technologies.

The YEBO! project, focusing on the promotion of the internationalization of doctoral studies in South Africa, aims to address and redress the problem areas of doctoral studies. The YEBO! project is a response to the target of the South African Government's National Development Plan to have an estimate of 5,000 doctoral graduates per year by 2030 in the fields of Science and Technology. Preliminary findings indicated that capacity building is critical in supporting doctoral studies. The imperative developmental areas include supervisory support and capacity, grant capacity and proposal writing capacity, with the potential to increase access to research networks, international funding and internships. The aforementioned do not exclude capacity support to institutions in support of doctoral studies, from an international perspective, and with a focus on best practices. Three principle approches were identified in response to the capacity development needs of South African universities: - A web-based portal that encompasses research and funding networks, identification of funding opportunities, with an emphasis on training materials and videos accessible to all. - Four themed conferences, co-organized by programme and partner countries, focusing on best practices for the internationalization and promotion of doctorate studies, and fostering networking and cooperation opportunities.- Three training sessions, organized in South Africa, with a focus on supervision capacities.

The Higher Education sector in South Africa is going through a fundamental transformation process, addressing several challenges such as inequality of representation amongst existing staff, high student : staff ratios, low throughput rates, limited qualifications of existing staff and an inadequate postgraduate pipeline. Therefore, the government aims to identify and nurture academic talent, support newly recruited academics to acquire Doctoral and Master’s degrees, and develop their research skills. Also, the roles of professionals in Higher Education operating in the ‘third space’ are increasingly important as universities seek to differentiate themselves in how they create a valuable student experience; ensure student outcomes; and positively impact their local, regional, and global communities and economies through research and engagement. The project will address these aspects with a focus on strengthening postgraduate environments, reinforcing academic cultures at public universities in South Africa. This will contribute to transforming public universities, creating more conducive environments for postgraduate studies and sustainable supervisory capacity. The project intends to support universities to develop supervision capacity, nurture academic talent, assist them in training newly recruited academics to acquire Doctoral and Master’s degrees and develop research skills of academic staff.At individual level, participants will be coached to design a tailor-made programme to develop postgraduate supervision, while taking into account the historical background, nature of the concerned institute, its ethos, its vision and mission and available resources. At institutional level, the extended tailor-made programme designed by the participants will be presented to their research office, faculty and university leadership, anticipating approval and implementation of (essential elements of) the proposed programme to enhance their postgraduate environment.

Water-scarce regions in Sub-Saharan Africa are most vulnerable to climate change and fluctuations in seasonal rainfall patterns. Agriculture is the most important economic sector in those areas and adaptation strategies must include technical support to subsistence and smallholder farmers who need to apply innovative technologies and practices to cope with environmental stresses and create revenue generating activities. The DIVAGRI project proposes a wide range of bio-based innovative solutions adapted to specific conditions in target countries. Ecosystem restoration in combination with diverse crop production in regenerative agricultural systems, mobile biorefineries for biomass conversion to high-value compounds and bioenergy, and the highly innovative clay-based micro-irrigation system “SLECI” (Self-regulating, Low Energy, Clay-based Irrigation) are solutions developed by DIVAGRI. In addition, building on community participation and co-development of collaborative business models, the project will enable smallholder farmers to increase income and generate new economic opportunities while guaranteeing food security, real rural opportunities, and sustainability. The focus of this project is not only on the primary production sector but also on the food and bio-based industries, thus promoting new partnerships between producers, processors, retailers and consumers and opening new sustainable avenues for businesses, services and value chains in support of rural communities. Developing innovative bio-based technologies characterised by the efficient use of resources and utilisation of waste and by-products, DIVAGRI contributes to the EU research priority of making the transition towards circular agriculture and bioeconomy.

The aim of the WASTE FEW ULL project is to develop and test internationally applicable methods of identifying inefficiencies in a city-region's food-energy-water nexus. We will undertake this through an international network of industry/civic society-led Urban Living Labs (ULL) in four urban regions - UK (Bristol), Netherlands (Rotterdam), South Africa (Western Cape) and Brazil (Campinas). Partners in Norway and the USA will provide economic valuations of potential impact, and impact-led public education, outreach and dissemination. Waste occurs across food, energy and water systems; at the interface of these systems, waste increases significantly the over-consumption of our limited resources (FAO, 2017): food (e.g. energy lost in food storage), energy (e.g. used to clean water) and water (e.g. nutrients lost in sewage). Resource scarcity is not only a matter of efficiency, but of access, distribution and equality (Exner et al, 2013). Each urban context has different pressures and opportunities (Ravetz, 2000). The focus of the WASTE FEW ULL project is therefore not so much on the specific downstream challenges, but on upstream processes by which cities can identify, test and scale viable and feasible solutions that reduce the most pressing inefficiencies in each context.