DELTAS Africa funds consortia aligned to four strategic areas of scientific quality; research leadership; research manage, culture & infrastructure; and scientific citizenship.

The DELTAS Africa initiative is designed to establish excellent research networks that will recruit, train and mentor a globally competitive critical mass of researchers who will lead locally relevant and high-quality research to influence health science, policy and practice in Africa.

DELTAS Africa II continues to foster intra-Africa collaboration, improve research environments and train researchers to conduct relevant, locally contextualized studies that advance our knowledge on key research and development priority gaps including: discovery, translational, implementation and operational sciences for:

• Infectious diseases, such as malaria, HIV and tuberculosis
• Neglected tropical diseases and ONE Health
• Non-communicable diseases
• Mental health and neurosciences
• Multidisciplinary nexus of health and climate
• Social sciences and humanities
• Climate change and planetary health
• Anti-microbial resistance
• Accidents, injury, disability and snake bite
• Clinical research
• Implementation research, health systems research, public health research

Our Guiding Principles:

• Long-term horizon: DELTAS Africa acknowledges and is committed to the realities that raising scientific productivity and quality and building a critical mass in leadership is inherently long term.
• Hub-and-spoke model: All DELTAS Africa initiatives are led by initiative Directors based in an African institution, who construct multi-country research and training consortia, using a hub-and-spoke model of initiative design and delivery which has enabled an increased R&D footprint on the African continent and strengthened south-to-south and intra-African collaborations. The DELTAS Africa model is best imagined as a hub and spoke arrangement in which a lead institution(hub) enters collaboration with other institutions in other countries (spokes) which may be partners or collaborators to jointly apply for large research grants and implement long-term scientific research initiatives.
• Research alignment to country and regional needs: DELTAS Africa initiatives are aligned to country and regional needs, which have been identified through wide stakeholder and community engagement.
• Diversity and inclusion in consortia leadership and recruitment of trainees: Recruitment of staff and students is tracked to assess gender parity and equity.
• Balancing excellence with equity in consortia formation and recruitment of trainees: Institutions that are generally recognised as strong or high performing research institutions partner with institutions across countries or regions that are generally perceived as not being strong in research to enable the building of capacity, institutional strengthening and improvement of research environment and productivity that will spread excellence across the continent.
• Value for Money: DELTAS Africa grantees mainstream value for money principles throughout the initiative life cycle to ensure effectiveness and efficiency