Research Council of Zimbabwe Looking To Fund Entrepreneurs Addressing R&D Pain Points

ZITF has been pretty interesting and we’ve been running into some interesting stuff on a daily. Yesterday it was Buddie Beatz. Today we bumped into something a bit more interesting. The Research Council of Zimbabwe (RCZ) is calling for proposals to enable technology innovators and entrepreneurs to pursue promising scientifically proven concepts. The focus of the call is on “heritage-based science and technology” innovations.

What are the objectives of the call?

RCZ has set the following objectives with their open call:

1. 1. 1. Stimulate and support demand-driven technological innovation, prototyping and commercialisation
   1. 1. Stimulate and support demand-driven service innovation
   1. 1. Contribute to meeting the Nation’s impactful R&D requirements
   1. 1. Foster and encourage participation in innovation and entrepreneurship by women, youth and persons from informal sectors
   1. Increase private-sector/industrial commercialisation of innovations derived from national R&D funding.

Nature of the projects?

The Research Council of Zimbabwe is interested in projects of the following nature:

1. 1. 1. Projects that have a process/product innovation with significant socio-economic impact and ready for prototyping or commercialisation
   1. 1. Projects with a clear technology and /or commercialisation objectives
   1. Projects of collaborative nature i.e research institutions/academia and business enterprise/entrepreneur/SME

The fund will be provided funding of $250 000 over a maximum period of 18 months.

Application guidelines

RCZ has a list of guidelines that are meant to help applicants and some of the things applicants should look out for include:

• Proposals should be well presented meeting known scientific and commercialisation potential criteria
• Management structure should be well defined as well as a clear sustainability plan.
• Applicants should make the case i.e. explain the steps that led to the proposed research concept and focus.
• Demonstrate the strategic value of research to Zim
• Demonstrate commercialisation potential and/or research capacity building
• Budget should not be inflated and expenses should be adequately justified

How will proposals be processed?

You can find a full guideline of the RCZ funding guidelines for download that here.

How do you apply?

You can send an email to reee@rcz.ac.zw/technical@rcz.ac.zw. Applicants should also include an approval from the host institution of affiliation. Proposals without this approval will not be considered. Applicant should also declare originality of their work and sign off to confirm ownership. The deadline for applications is on the 30th of May.