Building together, moving forward

In the first week of March 2026, program management representatives from the three Africa Pandemic Sciences Collaborative partners – the Science for Africa Foundation, the Pandemic Sciences Institute at the University of Oxford, and the Mastercard Foundation – convened in Nairobi for a strategic alignment workshop.

Over the past two years, the Collaborative has made significant progress toward its vision of strengthening Africa’s pandemic preparedness capacity. Seven EPSILON research consortia are now active across the continent, bringing together over 30 African universities and research institutions to advance novel research in pandemic and epidemic preparedness. As our partnership has grown and evolved, we came together to reflect on what is working, sharpen how we collaborate, and build a stronger foundation for the next phase of delivery. To this end, the Mastercard Foundation engaged CoCreative – an organisation experienced in supporting large-scale multi-partner collaboratives – to help design and facilitate this process.

It was a fun-filled week of deep collaboration, shared vision and renewed energy around one of the most important missions on the continent – strengthening Africa’s pandemic resilience and building an African-led science and innovation ecosystem. When you are co-creating a continent-wide research ecosystem across diverse countries, cultures and contexts, moments of intentional alignment are essential.

Together, we reflected on the significant progress we have made. At the heart of this work is the emerging generation of African scientists, innovators and health leaders who will shape the continent’s scientific future. Our role is to create the conditions for them to thrive, lead and deliver solutions – multiplying opportunities across biotechnology, epidemiology, data science and beyond.

Weeks like this remind us why co-creation and collaboration matter. We are building something important together, and this week strengthened the foundation that will carry us forward. We leave with sharper clarity on how to work together, and deeper commitment to the scientists and institutions whose work will define Africa’s pandemic preparedness for generations to come.