ACP Innovation Fund and RERIPA Project
The RERIPA Project “Renforcement des écosystèmes de Recherche et d’Innovation face aux enjeux climatiques dans le Pacifique” (Strengthening Research and Innovation Ecosystems to Address the Impact of Climate Change in the Pacific) in the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) is an initiative funded by the ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific) Innovation Fund, a component of the R&I programme of the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS) with financial contribution from the European Union.
The ACP Innovation Fund (https://oacps-ri.eu/en/innovation-fund/) is a key component of the OACPS Research and Innovation (R&I) Programme, aimed at strengthening R&I capacity in its (ACP) member countries, to unlock their innovation potential and support their transition into knowledge-based economies for sustainable development.
Investments in R&I capacity are likely to pay a higher dividend, if embedded in an effective and inclusive innovation ecosystem and combined with efforts to constitute a critical mass of skilled people adapted to the labour market demand.
The ACP Innovation Fund provides financial support for the implementation of projects advancing solutions in the following areas:
• increasing access to digital literacy, knowledge, and use of emerging technologies
• creating or strengthening effective links between R&I skills development and labour market demand;
• establishing or enabling effective synergies in the research and innovation ecosystem, including with the private sector; facilitating conditions for technology transfer; promoting R&I uptake;
• promoting local and indigenous knowledge and its use in combination with formal knowledge systems and practices
4 Project Consortium Members
1. IRD (French National Research Institute for Sustainable) Development
2. Pacific Islands Association of Non-Government Organisation (PIANGO – Fiji)
3. Pacific Island Development Forum (PIDF – Fiji)
4. Vanuatu Meteorology & Geo-Hazard Department (VMGD – Vanuatu)
General Objective
Inclusive R&I environment across the Pacific region to face climate change impacts (CCI).
The original approach of RERIPA I s to support the co-design and deployment of researchbased solutions around climate issues by academic actors, companies, NGOs, users’ representatives and public authorities, in order to respond to identified needs.
Specific Objectives
-SO1: R&I stakeholders collaborating across the Pacific region through a regional network to develop and apply innovative R&I strategies, in particular to introduce CCI solutions.
-SO2: R&I stakeholders able to generate, apply and transform knowledge to innovate for sustainable development.
-SO3: Increased uptake in the region of innovative, inclusive and sustainable solutions to face regional climate change impacts tested, developed or adapted by the Living Labs.
Geographical Scope
RERIPA will be implemented in two or more of the 15 Small Islands Developing States (SIDS) in the Pacific Region: Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.
Context
The consequences of climate change on the terrestrial and marine environments of the Pacific islands and on their populations are already strongly felt. The IPCC’s projections point to a short-term acceleration of the negative impact of climate change in the Pacific (rising sea level, ocean acidification, enhanced erosion, increasing temperatures and overall loss of biodiversity).
The serious consequences of these changes and disasters on the life and livelihoods of Pacific countries led the leaders of the Pacific Forums to place greater emphasis and a higher priority on a well-informed and coordinated regional and national response.
This is based on the acquisition and appropriation of robust scientific knowledge that must be shared by the populations, from the design stage to its application via inclusive and innovative solutions.
It is crucial to build R&I capacity and networks between regional and intra-regional stakeholders to deal with climate change challenges and its effects on the vulnerability of resources. This will allow Pacific Islands states to strengthen R&I in the region which will underpin sustainable regional development objectives.
Policy Background: Research and Innovation (R&I) on Climate Change
The problem shared by all those involved in the R&I ecosystems of SIDS is to make knowledge accessible, establish clear dialogue between stakeholders (science brokers) and put in place contractual tools to ensure innovations can be developed and implemented.
The absence of work processes between these stakeholders prevents them from maximizing the desired impact (with a lower degree of risk, notably technological) and from the assurance of equitable development partnerships, for a measurable socio-economic impact.
Cooperation methods between the various stakeholders of the ecosystems, through collective intelligence, capacity building and the implementation of living labs, take into account the heterogeneous nature of R&I ecosystems in the vast Pacific region as well as the asymmetry between countries, aggravated by differences in development and long distances.
RERIPA focuses on 3 key topics: the issues of coastal vulnerability, ocean health and rising sea level, linked with the priorities of the target territories, to which the beneficiaries of RERIPA and their partners contribute to skills, methodologies and robust and complementary knowledge to put in place strategies, R&I networks and inclusive and sustainable innovative solutions.
This is consistent with the new European consensus on development insofar as it creates and reinforces actual interactions between all players in the innovation value chain: the populations, civil society, businesses or research institutions, so that they can draw on their knowledge and skills for the joint design of innovative, inclusive and sustainable solutions. The purpose of RERIPA is to have a structuring effect on R&I ecosystems through an integrated, inclusive approach, knowledge sharing and capacity building.
Expected Results of RERIPA
The expected impact is the implementation of better-structured and adaptable research and innovation modalities both in terms of general programming and concrete and targeted actions where each stakeholder (public decision-makers, economic actors, civil society organisations, NGOs, and individual actors) can find useful resources for their project:
1. National R&I ecosystems on target themes are mapped and diagnosed in a participatory manner (innovation strategies, funding, needs, opportunities, actors, interactions, know-how, knowledge, existing innovations, jobs/skills, etc.), and a shared vision of future strategies and challenges is built.
2. The capacities to mobilise civil and business society around their representatives and to contribute to strategies and actions are strengthened.
3. The skills of actors (including political leaders) in the field of research valorization (contracting, intellectual property, maturation and technology transfer, etc.) and project engineering (setting up, responding to Calls for proposals, monitoring/evaluation, etc.) are reinforced.
4. The capacities of actors in the fields of climate-related activities, tools and services are strengthened.
5. Livings Labs mobilising different actors around innovative and sustainable user-centred solutions founded on research-based evidence, to cope with CCI and support SIDS (coastal) economy.
