AFRICAI-RI
Project Title: AFRICAI-RI: A Pan-African Research Infrastructure for Collaborative Biomedical Imaging and Artificial Intelligence
Project Period: 2025 – 2029
Project Synopsis:
AFRICAI-RI is a Horizon Europe Global Health EDCTP3 project creating Africa’s first shared biomedical imaging research network. It links hospitals, universities, and research centres across Africa and Europe to build ethical, trustworthy AI for detecting and diagnosing respiratory illnesses, especially tuberculosis (TB) and pneumonia. The project uses federated learning, which lets partners train AI models without moving patient data. This protects privacy and national data control while giving researchers access to better, more diverse imaging datasets.
Principal Investigators: Karim Lekadir, Dinis Nguenha
Project Partners:
1. University of Barcelona
2. Manhiça Health Research Centre
3. Delft Imaging Ghana
4. Jimma University Medical Centre
5. Centre of Medical Research Lambaréné
6. Infectious Diseases Research Collaboration
7. University of Kinshasa
8. Nigerian Institute of Medical Research
9. Iba Der Thiam University
10. Kamuzu University of Health Sciences
11. Medical Research Council Unit The Gambia
12. Erasmus Medical Centre
13. Foundation for Research & Technology Hellas
14. Barcelona Institute for Global Health
Project Funder: Global Health EDCTP3 under the European Union’s Horizon Europe Framework
Study Objectives:
- Develop and populate the first-ever pan-African imaging data infrastructure to enhance the availability and exploitation of African imaging data for AI-powered detection of respiratory diseases
- Develop new AI solutions based on trustworthy and ethical AI principles to address unmet needs in image-based diagnosis of respiratory diseases in at-risk populations across SSA.
- Demonstrate the added value and practical benefits of the developed digital solutions in addressing pressing research and healthcare challenges in SSA.
- Implement a multi-stakeholder co-creation approach to address clinical, technical, ethical and legal challenges across SSA and enhance acceptance, adoption and sustainability.
- Leverage proven European and African expertise to develop a multi-disciplinary knowledge transfer programme in imaging data science for enhanced capacity building in SSA.
- Implement impact evaluation, outreach and networking activities to co-define sustainability and exploitation plans and ensure the project’s legacy across SSA regions.
