CEA-FIRST, the Consortium Europe Africa on Research and Innovation for Food Systems Transformation, consists of 21 partners from Africa and Europe, partly from the former LEAP4FNSSA, extended with new public and private network partners. CEA-FIRST will operationalise the International Research Consortium (IRC) as a long-term platform on food and nutrition security and sustainable agriculture (FNSSA) in line with the FNSSA Roadmap of the AU-EU High-Level Policy Dialogue (HLPD).

This IRC is a member based, multi-actor platform and will work towards increasing synergies and coherence while reducing fragmentation and duplication of research efforts. Its aim is to promote higher returns on investments and impact on business development in Africa and Europe, by linking actors, research and innovation projects, initiatives, and funding programmes.

CEA-FIRST will:
1. provide public access to alarge knowledge platform,
2. offer a sound method for analysis of R&I activities,
3. support the updating of the FNSSA Roadmap,
4. establish operational working groups and thematic research calls. The final output will be a fully functional IRC, including governance bodies. CEA-FIRST will also support its liaison with the High-Level Policy Dialogue (HLPD). It will create a learning environment, including communication channels, to support multi stakeholder networks and to strengthen R&I coordination. The IRC will also serve related AU-EU policy priorities, such as the Climate Change and Sustainable Energy and the Innovation Agenda of the HLPD, as well as the European Green Deal priorities (and farm to fork strategy) and the AU priorities like the African Free Trade Area.