Melissa Plath
Project Manager
Summary
Project Manager working in higher education, science policy, and EU-AU science cooperation.
Profile
An expert in internationalization of research and higher education, science policy cooperation, and Europe-Africa science policy cooperation.
Researcher info
Institution
UniPID / University of Helsinki
Contact information
melissa.plath@helsinki.fi
+358 504335070
Keywords
Africa Europe higher education innovation science policy
Research projects
The FinCEAL Plus BRIDGES project (2019-2020) supports the development of partnerships and collaborative research activities between the Finnish research community and those in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). In addition, the project facilitates connections with European partners, whenever the cooperation also includes partners from the target regions. The project is an extension of the FinCEAL (2013-2014), FinCEAL Plus (2015-2016) and FinCEAL Plus Continuation initiatives, all financed by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture. Previously, the focus of FinCEAL has been on supporting research collaboration in the thematic areas determined by the EU's bi-regional science, technology and innovation (STI) policy dialogues with Africa, Asia and LAC. FinCEAL BRIDGES will continue to contribute towards strengthening bi-regional cooperation, while expanding the thematic focus to the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, particularly Global Partnerships for Sustainable Development (Goal 17). On a national level, BRIDGES also supports the International Strategy for Higher Education and Research 2017-2025. The Ministry has mandated the UniPID network to coordinate the initiative.
Team
Jarkko Mutanen, Melissa Plath, Quivine Ndomo
LEAP4FNSSA is a Coordination and Support Action (CSA) whose main objective is to provide a tool for European and African institutions to engage in a Sustainable Partnership Platform for research and innovation on Food and Nutrition Security, and Sustainable Agriculture (FNSSA).
Team
Melissa Plath
PRE-LEAP-RE aims to contribute to identifying and formulating a strategic jointly designed Research and Innovation Agenda for renewable energy (RE) collaboration between Europe and Africa and establishing the organizational principles for its implementation in a forthcoming Joint Programme. The project will bringing together national funding agencies from EU and African States, involving key European and African actors of energy research. The key anticipated outcome of the PRE-LEAP-RE project is a European Joint Programme (EJP) in the field of RE.
Team
Melissa Plath, Quivine Ndomo
LEAP-Agri is a joint Europe Africa Research and Innovation (R&I) initiative related to Food and Nutrition Security and Sustainable Agriculture (FNSSA). 30 partners, including 24 Ministries and Funding Agencies (Group of Funders) from 18 European and African countries decide to join their forces and funding to build an ERA-Net Cofund project with a financial support of the European Commission. The project has two pillars, (i) funding R&I projects on FNSSA, and (ii) Feeding the long-term EU- AU partnership on FNSSA.
Team
Melissa Plath
Building on the successes and outcomes of the previous FinCEAL and FinCEAL Plus projects, the FinCEAL Plus Continuation project aimed to provide strategic support to enhance the cooperation between research and science policy communities in Finland, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean. The specific objectives of the project were to: 1. Strengthen Finnish participation in the EU STI policy dialogues with the target regions; 2. Support Finnish participation in joint research projects with partners from the target regions; 3. Enable Finnish expertise and know-how to be better known in the target regions; and 4. Gather and disseminate information on Finnish cooperation towards the regions within Finland as well as new cooperation possibilities with the target regions.
Team
Eva Kagiri, Kajsa Ekroos, Jarkko Mutanen, Melissa Plath
FinCEAL Plus started in January 2015 as an expansion and continuation of the FinCEAL Project (2012-2014), both funded by the Ministry of Education and Culture. The aims of the FinCEAL Plus project were to: 1. Increase and consolidate the Finnish bi-regional cooperation towards Africa, Asia, and the LAC region, with special emphasis on supporting Finnish researchers’ involvement in European bi-regional networks; 2. Support and consolidate the participation of Finnish experts in EU-Africa, EU-CELAC and EU- Asia bi-regional research and science policy dialogues; 3. Increase the knowledge about and visibility of Finnish cooperation towards the target regions within Finland; 4. Expand the awareness of Finnish expertise in the regions; and 5. Expand and consolidate the Finnish research communities’ awareness of cooperation possibilities with the EU, Africa, Asia and LAC region. 6. Throughout all the project activities, strengthening the Finnish universities’ global responsibility and making it more systematic and measurable.
Team
Eva Kagiri, Kajsa Ekroos, Jarkko Mutanen, Melissa Plath
CAAST-Net Plus is a network of 25 partner organisations from all over Europe and sub-Saharan Africa, working together to support bi-regional cooperation in research and innovation. Building on the activities and outputs of the CAAST-Net project (2008-2012), CAAST-Net Plus aims to: Encourage more and better bi-regional STI cooperation for enhanced outcomes around topics of mutual interest, and particularly in relation to the global societal challenges of climate change, food security and health. Foster discussion among stakeholders for gathering informed opinion and experience about the bi-regional cooperation process, formulating and disseminating it in such a way as to be admissible to the formal bi-regional STI policy dialogue process and to programme owners. ?Through informing the bi-regional policy dialogue for mutual learning and awareness, through building support for coordinated and innovative approaches to bilateral funding of bi-regional cooperation around global challenges, brokering the public-private relationship to foster improved uptake and translation of bi-regional research partnership outputs into innovative technologies, good and services, and through dedicated mechanisms to encourage bi-regional research partnerships, CAAST-Net Plus will make invaluable contributions to the quality and scope of the Africa-Europe STI relationship for mutual benefit.
Team
Melissa Plath
The two-year FinCEAL pilot project aimed to enhance cooperation between research and science policy communities in Finland, Europe, Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean by networking the Finnish research community and by supporting their participation in bi-regional research projects and science policy processes. FinCEAL was an initiative funded by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture and implemented by UniPID, the Finnish University Partnership for International Development. FinCEAL activities were focused on the following thematic areas, derived from the European Union's bi-regional science, technology and innovation policy processes: Africa – Food Security, Information Society, Health, Climate Change and Renewable Energy; LAC – ICT for Societal Challenges, Bioeconomy, Biodiversity and Climate Change, Renewable Energy and Health.
Team
Eva Kagiri, Kajsa Ekroos, Melissa Plath
Establish a long-term framework for communication, collaboration and coordination of programme owners/ managers related to S&T co-operation from Europe and Africa . Reinforce EU-Africa S&T collaboration by promoting joint learning by African and European research programme owners and managers and identifying relevant instruments to address more effectively the global challenges of sustainable development. Develop joint funding schemes and procedures between European and African programme owners aiming at supporting joint activities. Strengthen African research capacities and improve the impact of research for development in Africa. Strengthening the impact and the influence of S&T research implies enhancing the transfer of new knowledge to the benefit of the society. It also implies the achievement of greater coherence between research outputs and policies and funding instruments in other areas than research.
Team
Melissa Plath