A workshop on funding opportunities for African-European radio astronomy partnerships brought together Members of the European Parliament, officials of the European Commission and the European Investment Bank, as well as leading African and European radio astronomers and representatives of global industry, to discuss how to further develop cooperation in radio astronomy between Africa and Europe.

The workshop took place days after the SKA (Square Kilometre Array) Organisation decided that the South Africa, along with its eight SKA partner countries in Africa, will host the mid-frequency dish array and dense aperture array of the iconic SKA radio telescope. The fruitful meeting ended with an elaboration of next steps to establish a dedicated African-European Radio Astronomy Platform (AERAP) vehicle to enhance cooperation.

Radio astronomy is recognised as one of the disciplines with the most exciting potential for building Africa's science and technology capacities and is also an area of great strategic importance for the future of research in Europe. The workshop "Leveraging new funding opportunities for African-European Astronomy partnerships - Realizing the objectives of the European Parliament's Written Declaration 45/2011" followed a landmark decision for the international astronomy community.

On 25 May 2012 the Members of the SKA Organisation agreed to construct two of the three SKA receiver components in Africa (with the other located in Australia and New Zealand). The SKA will be about 50 - 100 times more sensitive than any other radio telescope. Its construction is expected to cost about 1.5 billion Euros.

Dr Michiel van Haarlem, Interim Director General of SKA Organisation: "We are looking forward to working together with African colleagues on the SKA. This will be part of a global collaboration with African countries, Australia and New Zealand."

Prof George Miley, Vice President of the International Astronomical Union and International Coordinator of the EU Universe Awareness project: "Astronomy is a unique instrument for development.

It links cutting edge technologies, frontier sciences and our deepest cultural layers. South Africa has been a role model for the International Astronomical Union in exploiting astronomy for capacity building. A large part of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) will be built in Africa. This will be enormous iconic project for Africa, Europe and World and an enormous boost for capacity building in Africa."

During the workshop recent policy developments in EU-Africa cooperation, such as a European Parliament Written Declaration and an African Union Assembly Decision, which endorsed radio astronomy as a priority focus area for Africa-EU cooperation, were presented.

Discussions focused on how the radio astronomy community could best leverage Africa-EU funding opportunities, resulting from this favourable policy environment, for scientific and education cooperation, including researcher mobility and student and staff exchange programmes, as well as industrial partnerships in areas such as ICT, energy and advanced manufacturing.

Prof Luis Magalhaes, Co-Chair of the Africa-EU Science, Information Society and Space Partnership Joint Expert Group: "Cooperation in radio astronomy is very interesting for Europe and Africa. It involves science, technology and communication aspects.

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Exploring The Universe With The African-European Radio Astronomy Platform