Presentation

Recognizing the critical role of education in social and economic development, acknowledging the importance of research in the formulation and implementation of educational policy and reforms, and cognizant of the critical role of knowledge, experience, lessons learnt and their tangible impact on the sustainable and inclusive transformation of African economies, ADEA and ECAD/AfDB have created the ERAA.

This award is designed to promote excellence in educational research in African universities, research institutes and networks. It seeks to identify, reward and foster outstanding accomplishments in educational research in Africa, as well as its application in training or capacity building. More specifically, ERAA aims at:

• Strengthening the link between education research and education policy-making and practice in Africa;
• Encouraging and supporting Africa-based researchers and their institutions to produce and disseminate rigorous and relevant research that stimulates innovative policy-making for Africa;
• Facilitating interaction between researchers and policy-makers in order to promote the systematic use of research findings in policy conceptualization, formulation, design, implementation and evaluation;
• Facilitating the identification of strong researchers to provide content for the ADEA Knowledge Hub.

The expected long-term outcome of this award is the institutionalization of a culture of high quality and relevant educational research in Africa that contributes to informed decision-making, and effective implementation of reforms and practice.

The award has been granted periodically starting in 2012 and it is composed of four categories:

1. Emerging Educational Researcher
2. Accomplished Educational Researcher
3. Outstanding Mentor of Educational Researchers
4. Enabling Institutional Environment for Educational Research