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This study explores the innovation intermediaries' landscape in sub-Saharan Africa, considering Science Granting Councils (SGCs) as the key intermediaries in the system. Based on extensive desk research, personal interviews, and an online survey, the study discusses the roles and functions performed by SGCs as intermediators and influences of science, technology, and innovation (STI) policy. The results of the analysis corroborate the need for institutional and systemic changes to enable SGCs to perform their role. The realities, resources, and constraints at the local level cry out for the adaptation of current and future partnerships to the local context. The study concludes that only by tailoring partnerships to the development of capacity at the local level can SGCs perform effectively as influencers of national STI policy and mediators of partnerships with foreign development actors.

Policies are not an end in themselves, but deliberate systems of principles to guide decisions and achievement of rational outcomes. Many factors inherent in or transcending policy processes have dramatic consequences for how policies are interpreted and applied. In this article, we deploy the concept of 'policy gridlocks' to better understand factors that facilitate or hinder implementation of single or multiple policies in different African policy arenas. We argue that minimizing or ameliorating 'policy gridlocks' requires stakeholders to quantify and more directly feel the cost of their decisions and actions, while scholars must continue to search for institutional means to prevent gridlocks, including broadening the array of conceptual and analytical tools for understanding policy processes. We conclude that limits in financial resources, technical expertise and legislative capacity are the more powerful drivers of policy formulation, implementation and revision gridlocks that need to be addressed, than fragmentation of stakeholder interests.

The Science Granting Councils Initiative (SGCI) in Africa aims to strengthen the capacities of selected science granting councils (SGCs) in sub-Saharan Africa in order to support research and evidence-based policies that will contribute to Africa’s economic and social development. As part of SGCI, a study was conducted in 2021 to investigate strategies that have been adopted by fifteen SGCs participating in SGCI in promoting ethical practice in research and innovation. Data collection for the study was mainly based on a data abstraction form that was completed for each country by an assigned focal person with a background in research ethics. The focal persons relied on various methods including document and website review and interviews with senior officers at the SGCs. The study specifically sought to describe the strategies and activities being implemented by the 15 SGCs in promoting ethics and integrity in research and innovation. The study revealed various strategies that were being implemented by the 15 SGCs aimed at promoting ethics in research and innovation including requiring proof of research ethics committee approval before releasing research funds and the inclusion of ethics questions in the application form for funding. It was observed that some activities and strategies were generic to most SGCs for example the development of general/standard guidelines for the conduct of research in each respective country. Overall, the different SGCs were involved in a broad spectrum of activities aimed at promoting research ethics and this paper presents an opportunity for cross fertilization of ideas. By providing a summary of the various strategies that SGCs are using in promoting ethical conduct of research, it is hoped that this paper will lead to improvements in the ways SGCs provide support and oversight over the research that they fund.

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