RECIRCULATE: Driving eco-innovation in africa: capacity-building for a safe circular water economy

reccirculation将支持新的基于伙伴关系的方法，使非洲研究人员能够通过与他们的社区合作、在社区内工作和为社区服务而产生变革性的影响。兰开斯特大学是目前唯一一所在非洲设有校区的英国大学，非洲是兰开斯特大学的战略重点。与我们的合作伙伴跨国教育（TNE）一起，我们投资了超过500万英镑建立了我们的加纳校区（“LU Ghana”于2013年开业，目前支持450名学生）。兰开斯特大学致力于将LU加纳发展成为一个研究基地，并将购买额外的6公顷土地，用于建设一个更大的校园，其中将包括工程和环境科学的实验室设施。除了在加纳和尼日利亚建立长期合作伙伴关系外，兰开斯特大学还在生态创新方面发挥了全国领导作用，即既支持业务增长又支持环境的创新。它有能力将高质量的研究转化为“现实世界的影响”，兰开斯特的全球生态创新中心（CGE）屡获殊荣http://www.globalecoinnovation.org证明了这一点。ge已经证明，生态创新可以为经济和环境带来积极的效益，并且从根本上支持最终用户驱动的研究需求。我们对非洲生态创新愿景的核心是促进中长期经济增长的需求，这种增长既能适应未来气候，又能在可能的情况下减轻环境变化的影响。根据我们的经验以及我们在加纳和尼日利亚的核心合作伙伴的经验，RESILIENCE将重点放在对更安全的循环水经济的总体需求上，这种经济由研究驱动，但由社区主导。可持续、公平和适合社区的水管理在加强社会、经济和环境系统面对变化的复原力方面发挥着关键作用。同样，可持续和公平的水管理需要与社区充分参与的研究，以确保以适当的规模开发新的解决方案以满足特定需求，因此提供了一个很好的例子，说明研究机构需要与社区合作，在社区内为社区工作。“再循环”以四个相互关联的研究领域为基础：（一）卫生和保健用水；（二）粮食生产用水；（三）能源生产用水；（四）水、病原体和健康。第五个工作领域综合了这些一揽子工作领域，特别侧重于微生物学和创造新方法以减少水媒疾病对脆弱人群的影响的必要性。再循环工作计划将环境科学、生物医学、工程、管理和与外部利益相关者的知识交流的研究和能力建设结合起来，将支持高质量的研究伙伴关系，以建立从研究转向可持续发展解决方案所需的系统，从而支持加纳和尼日利亚从资源经济向知识经济的长期过渡。

RECIRCULATE will support new partnership-based approaches to enable African researchers to grow transformational impact through working with, in and for their communitiesThe vision, objectives and strategy for RECIRCULATE emerge from Lancaster's deep engagement with researchers and research users in sub-Saharan Africa. Africa is a strategic priority for Lancaster which is currently the only UK University to have a campus on the continent. With our partners Trans-National Education (TNE) we have invested in excess of £5M to establish our Ghana campus ("LU Ghana" opened in 2013 and now supports 450 students). Lancaster University is committed to grow LU Ghana as a research base, and are about to purchase an additional 6ha of land for a larger campus that will include laboratory facilities for engineering and environmental sciences. In addition to our long-standing partnership building in Ghana and Nigeria, Lancaster University has grown national leadership in eco-innovation - innovation supporting both business growth and the environment. It has the capacity to translate high quality research into "real world impacts" as demonstrated by Lancaster's double award-winning Centre for Global Eco-innovation (CGE) http://www.globalecoinnovation.org . CGE has demonstrated that eco-innovation can deliver positive benefits to both the economy and the environment and is fundamentally underpinned by the need for end-user driven research. At the heart of our eco-innovation vision for Africa is the needs to promote medium-to-long term economic growth that is both resilient to future climate and where possible able to mitigate the impact of environmental change. Informed by our experience and that of our core partners in Ghana and Nigeria, RESILIENCE focuses on the overarching need for a safer circular water economy that is research driven but community-led. Sustainable, equitable and community-appropriate management of water plays a key role in strengthening the resilience of social, economic and environmental systems in the face of change. Equally, sustainable and equitable water management needs research that is fully engaged with communities to ensure that novel solutions are developed at the appropriate scale to meet specific needs, and so provides an excellent example of the need for research institutions to work with, in and for their communities.RECIRCULATE is underpinned by four interlinked research areas: (i) water for sanitation and health; (ii) water for food production; (iiii) water for energy production, and (iv) water, pathogens and health. A fifth area of work integrates each of these work packages areas and focusses specifically on microbiology and the need to create new ways to reduce the impact of water-borne disease on vulnerable populations. The RECIRCULATE work plan integrating both research and capacity building across environmental science, biomedicine, engineering, management and knowledge exchange with external stakeholders will support high quality research partnerships to establish the systems necessary to move from research to sustainable development solutions and in so doing support the long-term transition of Ghana and Nigeria from resource to knowledge economies.