From nation-defining music to microplastic pollution: Seed funding awarded for projects led by African researchers

Seed funding has been awarded to a series of research projects led by African scholars and in collaboration with University of Bristol researchers – with the work to include studying microplastic pollution in the continent’s largest lake, and the role of music in mobilising Kenya’s anti-colonial movement.

The university’s Perivoli Africa Research Centre (PARC) has announced that two hundred thousand pounds have been allocated to five projects following an extensive decision process.

The PARC Partnership Fund (PPF) projects, which range from science to the arts, promote more equitable research partnerships between African and global North (UK) universities and are led by researchers in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Botswana and South Africa.

They include vital work such as a study into the waters of Wina Gulf, Lake Victoria – a 56km stretch, ending at Kisumu, Kenya. With the city home to caged fish farming, the work will examine the extent of pollution from additives and plastics like dyes and UV stabilisers, while also looking at the effect of microplastics on microscopic aquatic algae living in the lake, which are essential to reducing carbon emissions.

Professor Isabella Aboderin, Director of PARC, said: “These inaugural PPF projects pilot a transformed mode of partnership working which we hope will maximise the potential for the research to make a real and positive impact in Africa.

“As a centre, we want to embed a new model of partnership that redresses the power imbalances often found in research carried out between Africa and the global North – and demonstrate what these arrangements should really look like.

“This funding would not have been possible without the generous philanthropic gifts from Alumni and friends of the university, to whom we pay our thanks.”

The funding announcement follows a call that was open to any project aimed at addressing power imbalances from an Africa-centred collaboration.

Another of the partnerships will focus on rural Ethiopia, where climate change threatens the drinking supply of millions and less than 10% have access to uncontaminated water. It will determine how the area’s multi-village piped water supplies will respond to climate threats – studying various aspects of service delivery like local government support, effective management, and the infrastructure.

A third scheme, Sounding East Africa: Music, Technology and Ideology, will look to understand the role played by music in mobilising the anti-colonial movement in Kenya and Tanzania. Led by researchers in South Africa, it will study music’s role in creating and disseminating identities in these now-independent nations. It will examine why popular music from the two countries is intertwined with the idea of the nation, and why they have continued to be hugely popular with audiences across all age groups in East Africa until now.

The fourth will look at developing an indigenous model of crisis-sensitive educational leadership in Botswana. During the Covid pandemic, school leaders received limited guidance from Government, with no national research carried out to understand educational priorities and responses. This study will look to address that gap with a new approach by giving these professionals education, training and support.

The fifth focuses on the design of neuropharmaceuticals which can permeate the blood-brain barrier to help combat neurological disorders such as the ever more prominent Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) in South Africa. It follows the discovery of a new molecule known as EBPD, able to reduce harmful oxidants and decrease the formation of protein deposits in the brain that lead to the development of AD. This project will focus on developing new systems to enhance the stability and delivery of EBPD into the brain.

PARC was established in 2020 thanks to a £1m gift from the Perivoli Foundation. James Alexandroff, trustee and settlor of the Foundation said: “PARC was set up to change the dialogue between the global North and South, with the aim of African institutions playing a greater role in deciding what’s best for the people living in Africa.

“These transformational partnerships that are now underway very much show that mission in action, and demonstrate why PARC is so vital to disrupting the global status quo that’s seen the global North dominate science and research in Africa.”

For more information about the PARC Partnerships Fund, visit the PARC website here.