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Recognizing the imperative for continuous advancement in economic research and capacity building in Africa, the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) is embarking on a transformative 10-year Strategic Plan (2025-2035) –  “Re-inventing the AERC for Africa’s Economic Prosperity” –  that will replace the current Strategic Plan (2020-2025) and fundamentally transform AERC’s research, training, and policy engagement activities.

The re-engineering of economic research in Africa builds on the AERC success story of having established a robust pan-African network of researchers, resource persons, research institutions and policy makers. Going forward, the AERC research agenda will be shaped by critical African priorities and urgent needs that will require the integration of collaborative research, thematic research, PhD training and policy engagement. Under the AERC Strategic Plan 2025-2035, we will engage senior scholars within and outside Africa to collaborate on tackling the continent’s most pressing economic development challenges. Additionally, future research programmes will incorporate capacity building development through mentorship by providing support and guidance to emerging scholars at different stages of their careers. Each research programme will have the following characteristics:

1. Each research programme will be led by a Principal Investigator working with a Co-Principal Investigator and a team of leading researchers (co-investigators) to develop research work packages and frame the research questions in each work package. 
2. Senior scholars will mentor post-doctoral and early-career researchers (ECRs), fostering professional growth and academic excellence.
3. Joining the research work packages will be through a competitive process, where post-doctoral researchers or ECRs will bid competitively to win research grants on identified research questions at a set deadline. This competitive process will replace the past practice of submitting proposals on a rolling basis throughout the year. 
4. An additional layer of capacity building will be to nurture future economists, by offering PhD scholarships to students who will be attached to a research programme, hence providing opportunities for specialized capacity building on the relevant research area. 

In the interim, given the imminent expiry of the Strategic Plan 2020-2025, the AERC will uphold its fiduciary responsibility to support the ongoing pipeline of thematic researchers (at work-in-progress and final report phases) on each of the five thematic research groups (Groups A-E) until completion of final research papers during the summer months of 2025.

 “Through the integration of research excellence, mentorship, and capacity building, the AERC aims to nurture a new generation of African economists ready to conduct frontier research, lead economic policy engagement and drive sustainable development efforts across Africa. “ Prof. Victor Murinde, Executive Director, AERC.