BELIEF-II – Lessons learned on engagement and policy impacting e-Infrastructure usage and deployment in Sub-Saharan Africa

1. PAPER FOR WORKSHOP SESSION
"Emerging e-Infrastructures for Science in
Sub-Saharan Africa"
BELIEF-II – Lessons learned on
engagement and policy impacting e-
Infrastructure usage and deployment in
Sub-Saharan Africa
Author: Tiziana Lombardo, Metaware SpA. Co-author: Stephen Benians, Metaware SpA
Abstract: This paper provides an overview on the main results and lessons learned
within the BELIEF-II project lifespan (April 2008-March2010) in terms of
community involvement and engagement of policy dialogue in South-Africa and in
other southern regions
Keywords: e-Infrastructures, International Cooperation, Policy Dialogue.
1. Introduction
e-Infrastructures have not only become necessary to deal with increased complexity in
tackling scientific challenges, but also as a strategic tool fostering collaborative innovation
globally. e-Infrastructures enable researchers in different locations across the world to
collaborate in the context of their home institutions or in national or multinational scientific
initiatives. They can work together by having shared access to unique or distributed
scientific facilities (including data, instruments, computing and communications).
The European Commission, through the GÉANT and e-Infrastructures Unit of the
Emerging Technologies and Infrastructures Directorate looks forward to expanding and
consolidating research communities that collaborate virtually in the EU and across the
world its, mainly through GÉANT, which is a high speed link reserved exclusively for
research and education, as well as specific high-performance Grid-enabled advanced
infrastructures.
It’s main mission is to change the way research is carried out, sharing access to
computing and reliable data resources, for the benefit of Global Virtual Research
Communities. It particularly supports:
• Development of high-capacity and high-performance communication (GÉANT) and
grid empowered infrastructures

2. • Deployment a coordinated pan European scientific data infrastructure
• Promotion and expansion of the adoption of e-Infrastructures by user communities
• Construction of critical new facilities based on the European Strategy Forum on
Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) roadmap for new research infrastructures of pan-
European interest
• Support the construction of new computation and data treatment facilities (petaflop
supercomputing)
• Strengthen multidisciplinary grid and supercomputing infrastructures
• Stimulation of new organisational models
• Exploitation of the power of e-Infrastructure as a vector of international cooperation
This context, set the framework for the BELIEF-II project[1] activities as an enabler
of the “efficient & effective communication of results, networking and knowledge
between e-Infrastructure projects”. As such, it was in a pivotal position to enable two
aims of DG INFSO’s e-Infrastructures initiative:
1. “Support new and replicable, working and organisational methods (based on the shared
use of resources across different disciplines and technology domains.”
2. “Provide technologies for collaboration, knowledge-sharing, and experimentation.”
Communication is a two-way operation that involves exchanging ideas, experiences
and knowledge. These must be interpreted and reacted on through feedback before the
communication process is completed. Moreover, efficient communication is not just a
sharing of information, but sharing of information in order to achieve a certain planned or
expected result. Communication problems lead to uncertainty and make it difficult to
develop strategic partnerships in the long run.
BELIEF aims to be the glue between projects by supporting their dissemination
and communications activities, but also by serving as a link to the myriad initiatives that
already exist, either outside Europe, other EU financed projects, or other member state
national level initiatives. Of course, communications - and the many tools that entails - is
the key strategy to reach this objective.
Investing in the adoption of e-Infrastructures’ can really benefit not only Europe but
particularly the emerging economies. e-Infrastructures are always about development of
new knowledge, but the impact of this on the development of economies and societies in
emerging economies is potentially a much steeper growth curve. For this reason, another
project’s strong focus is to address the policy makers in order to support their
understanding of the importance of e-Infrastructures adoption.
Inherent in this process therefore is a dual track approach to communications. On
the one hand BELIEF ensures that those who implement the e-infrastructures do so in a way
that responds to researchers’ needs; on the other, BELIEF ensures that researchers
understand the value of e-infrastructures adoption and how to link with them in order to
carry out virtual collaborative researchers that impacts society.

3. 2. Objectives
In this paper the authors describe the major lessons learned in terms of policy dialogue
engagement in southern regions such as India and Latin America with a particular focus on
the experience gained in the Sub-Saharan Region.
3. Methodology
BELIEF-II is an EU FP7 project aiming to support the goals of e-Infrastructure projects to
maximise synergies in specific application areas between research, scientific and industrial
communities.
The project builds on the success achieved in FP6 BELIEF [2] and has the strategic
objective to coordinate the efficient & effective communication of results, networking and
knowledge between e-Infrastructure projects and their users to promote worldwide
development and exploitation. More specifically, BELIEF-II seeks to ensure that European
and international diverse e-Infrastructures projects evolve in synergy with one another in
order to:
1. Ensure common directions and efficient interaction;
2. Reinforce the relevance of Europe's e-Infrastructures worldwide sustaining
successful development and exploitation;
3. Network a wide range of stakeholders through a coordinated mechanism to support
a vibrant e-Infrastructure community;
4. Synchronise e-Infrastructures priorities through easy to read e-infrastructure
communication products;
5. Provide a unique, communication platform for projects to manage their content,
communicate activities to users and the public to learn more about e-Infrastructures;
6. Ensure a global outreach of the EU projects results at international level
7. Set the basis and facilitate the international cooperation in the e-Infrastructures field
8. Ensure the communication of e-Infrastructures results at an international policy
making level
These primary goals have been achieved through multifaceted communication activities
aimed at involving the e-Infrastructures community on a large scale:
Networking events:
• 3 e-Infrastructures Concertation meetings and related reports – aimed at
facilitating the knowledge exchange among EU Funded projects
• 2 Brainstorming events – aimed at identifying and discuss big-picture opportunities
for e-Infrastructure applications and to collaborate to find solutions for problems
identified in the eConcertations
• 3 International Symposia, organised respectively in New Delhi (India) in
December 2008, in Sao Paulo (Brazil) July 2009 and in Johannesburg (South
Africa) December 2009 – aimed at bringing together key actors and policy makers
to discuss high-level issues in e-Infrastructure development;

4. Publications:
• e-Infrastructures guides:
o The global e-Infrastructure for research: pushing the boundaries of
innovation
o Another e-Infrastructures guide is under publication
• The Creative Connections dvd, available on the BELIEF YouTube Channel: http://
www.youtube.com/user/BeliefProject?gl=GB&hl=en-GB & the production of a new
dissemination video which will be released in April 2010.
• 2 EC e-Infrastructure dissemination publications on-going (titles to be finalised):
o Success Stories – Issue II
o Towards a Sustainable European e-Infrastructure
• 5 issues of Zero-In eMagazine (Research Infrastructures News publications) - http://
www.beliefproject.org/media-corner/e-magazine
Community building solutions:
• The community portal www.beliefproject.org, the e-Infrastructures one-stop-shop
made for the community by the community
• The Digital Library a public repository of over 15,000 e-Infrastructures related
documents including videos, presentations, articles, press releases, interviews and
projects deliverables.
1 Creating international networking opportunities and knowledge sharing.
The EU is linking up with many emerging economies, notably via the GEANT2 project,
to Asia, Latin America, Africa, and across the Mediterranean and Middle East.
Bearing in mind the importance and the need to facilitate dialogue among the key e-
Infrastructures players not only in Europe but also beyond frontiers, BELIEF organised a
series of successful international symposia, whose outcomes have been summarised in a
series of position papers1 that have been distributed to the local and European policy
makers to make sure that ‘sustainable development’ is at the core of funding policy and
project planning. The international events organised in the frame of BELIEF-II are:
1. New Delhi – India (28th-29th January 2009) on the theme of Distance Learning as
an e-Infrastructures Application attended by over 100 participants from Europe
and India (http://www.beliefproject.org/events/belief-indian-symposium),
2. São Paulo – Brazil (16th-17th July 2009) on the theme of e-Infrastructures for
sustainable development (http://www.beliefproject.org/events/2nd-belief-
international-symposium)
3. Johannesburg - South Africa (7th-9th December 2009) in conjunction with the
CHPC annual meeting on Advancing research competitiveness through
collaboration: towards an integrated South African cyberinfrastructure
The importance of these International Symposia lies in the fact that there are variations
in national funding priorities. Some countries have well funded national grid services and
supercomputers, others do not - and this is not necessarily an East-West or North-South
1 By the time this article was written, the South African Symposium position statement was under preparation

5. divide. This makes the role of e-Infrastructures all the more important for those that do not
have access to such ‘national’ faculties. The EU, via investment in this technology is
creating a single ERA, so that regardless of political boundary, the researchers across
Europe can collaborate without leaving the confines of their laboratories or office. The
same idea can be scaled up to global level, where there are of course massive disparities in
research infrastructures generally worldwide.
The BELIEF symposia in Latin America, South Africa and India facilitated the
dialogue between developers of e-Infrastructures, policy makers and the e-Infrastructures
users in these regions: this dialogue is key for sustaining those links since if technology
does not serve the specific needs of a region, it will die away, unused.
As discussed above, e-Infrastructures are always about development of new
knowledge, but the impact of this on the development of economies and societies in
emerging economies is potentially a much steeper growth curve. Education or health
applications may need to be more targeted towards ensuring primary care or education in
rural areas for example, rather than collaborating with developed world researchers in
pioneering new drugs, or analysing patient data. In a sense, the benefits of adopting e-
Infrastructures are whatever we want them to be. Each region will have a different strategic
priority for e-Infrastructures applications, but the result will always be - if the planning and
implementation is effective – societal and economic development.
The South African Symposium had the ambitious goal to be the meeting point of
stakeholders not only from the local region, but also from India and Latin America. Thus,
the event in SA was also a global forum facilitating collaborations between south-south
pioneers (Latin America and South Africa), e-Infrastructures representatives from emerging
economies (India), and EU stakeholders.
Specifically, this “South-South” symposium brought together the most relevant e-
Infrastructures initiatives already in place in South Africa (through its SANReN initiative)
and in the Sub Saharan region (such as UBUNTUNET) , Latin America (EELA &
CLARA), India (GARUDA, Indian National Knowledge Network), and Europe (EGEE,
GÉANT) to boost the possibility to work together towards a shared e-Infrastructure.
2 Engaging policy dialogue in South Africa
Bridging the digital and scientific divide within African countries and between Africa and
other regions, as well as fostering cooperation on space applications and technology to
support Africa’s sustainable development objective underlie the Africa-EU Partnership on
Science, Information Society and Space [3].
The South-Africa and EU partnership in Science and Technology is not only supported
by the South-African participation within the EC Framework Programmes (FP4-FP7) but is
reinforced also by a constructive policy dialogue around the affirmed role of science and
technology as instrument for sustainable development. South Africa is from its side a very
dynamic emerging economy: after years of academic isolation, the country’s higher
education institutions have eagerly rejoined the international research environment.
The country puts out more research than any other on the continent, generated by 12
500 academics and as many researchers based at research councils, institutes and
companies. There are hundreds of researchers who have achieved international recognition
as leaders in their fields of research.

6. Most research capacity in the higher education sector is located in the country’s top 12
universities, but the National Research Foundation is spending R43-million each year in an
equity drive to boost research activity in the historically disadvantaged institutions.
Altogether, the higher education sector contributes 34 percent of the country’s research and
development initiatives. [4]
If this shows a very positive scenario that is reflected also in the support that policy
makers gave to the CHPC&BELIEF event, it is important to underline that, as in each
country, the communication gap to be filled is not only among policy makers from different
countries but especially among local policy makers and the science community. Much of
the literature on the science-policy interface, in fact, concludes by advocating
intermediaries to remedy the divide between scientists and policy-makers [5] that exist
practically in each country.
Concerning the BELIEF project case study, the liaison with the South African policy
makers, as well as in the organisation of the 5th International Symposium, showed a very
positive trend in terms of filling this divide between science and policy dialogue. The role
of the South African partner of the BELIEF project - the Meraka institute [6] - was
however a fundamental pillar for this successful experience.
4. Results
BELIEF-II has the objective to promote a deeper understanding of what e-Infrastructures
are and to highlight the benefits of adopting this new way of doing research. The activities
carried out in its framework, from the eMagazines to the Brainstorming and Concertation
processes, have been then carried out in order to achieve this major and ambitious goal. In
particular, it has to be pointed out the innovative process adopted within the events
organised, that facilitated and created an effective ideas exchange and fruitful interaction
among participants. The project has strategically impacted the FP7 priorities providing the
e-Infrastructures stakeholders with:
• Support of emerging fields within e-Infrastructures by offering a multifaceted forum
for the exposure of new ideas and by facilitating the efforts of individuals pursuing
these ideas
• Foster the creation of Global Virtual Research Communities
• Encouragement for the pooling of resources between e-Infrastructure operators at
European and International level
• Spread of good practices and encouragement to the use of e-Infrastructures to attain a
more equitable development and distribution of knowledge.
• Dissemination and promotion of research and development activities on e-
Infrastructures
Concerning the International Symposia in particular, the concrete outcomes can be
summarised as follow:
• New user communities engaged by providing an understanding of the level of
activities and resources in the four countries (EU, Latin America, India, South
Africa).
• Enablement of "latent" collaborations between international research teams
• Support of the complementary national-level resources so that the user communities
across the four regions would be enhanced by working closer linked.

7. • Support in building technical community cohesion between the four regions:
• Support in the increase in the partnership between international HPC centres, data
repositories, advanced eResearch R&D organisations
• Support to increase the level of exchange of novel ideas, best practises and technical
expertises.
• Support the establishment of mutually beneficial areas of work at international level
5. Conclusions
The interactions the consortium had, especially with the international projects,
showed that there is a great need for efficient and effective communication: projects have to
communicate to each other in order to avoid time consuming in the exploitation of the same
applications. Bi-lateral communication is also needed to facilitate the interaction between
users and providers. In fact, whilst e-Infrastructures are well known in the academia and
research area, the same cannot apply to the industry/SMEs for example. It is fundamental to
bring together different user communities and providers in order to guarantee that scientific
information, and the tools to access this information, is heterogeneous and globally
distributed & accessible. For the rich and efficient use of information, seamless querying
across and along the different axes and stages of the information chain is needed, also
within and across scientific communities and domains. There is still a low level of
interoperability, particularly across different domains which has to be overcome.
This lack of proper communication is more evident at a policy level, where few
actions have been put in place in order to make the “e-Infrastructures message” penetrate.
The policy makers approached in the lifespan of the project showed great interest on
the themes presented. The more efficient communication strategy is the one that adopts a
“multiple media” approach: involvement of the policy makers with an active presence at
events (in roundtables for example), a follow up after their participation at the event is
certainly needed. The follow up can be maintained at a midterm by sending the event
proceedings and event position paper while, to maintain it at a longer term, further support
are needed: hard copies of the e-Magazine sent to the policy makers, proved to have a great
impact as well as the different publications (DVD, e-Infrastructures success stories, etc)
more than e-mail and e-Newsletters. Communication in general, must be however driven
with accurate attention: the quantity of information each individual receives day by day
through the multiple media channels available in the era of the web 2.0 is impressive and is
destined to grow, however, the quality of this communication is often scarce and the
messages are hard to understand.
In an international context, it is fundamental to focus the communication by paying
constant attention to the specific country needs and priorities. For this purpose, not only an
accurate study of the country is needed, but also a strong link with a local organisation is
necessary.
Last but not least, as a general and obvious conclusion, language plays a
fundamental role: the message must be clear and understandable at all levels: “You do not
really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother” - Albert
Einstein

8. References
[1] BELIEF-II Project website – www.beliefproject.org
[2] BELIEF project website - http://belief1.metaware.it/
[3] First Action Plan (2008-2010) for the implementation of the Africa-EU strategic
partnership
[4] South Africa’s official gateway website: http://www.southafrica.info/ess_info/
sa_glance/education/research.htm
[5] Political Science – Strengthening science-policy dialogue in developing countries,
Nicola Jones, Harry Jones and Cora Walsh, Overseas Development Institute, 2008
[6] Meraka website - http://www.meraka.org.za/index.htm