ORGANISATION FOR SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH IN EASTERN AND SOUTHERN AFRICA

Their core work

OSSREA is a social science research institute based in Addis Ababa that studies how communities in Eastern and Southern Africa interact with food systems, natural resources, and climate change. Their work bridges qualitative social research and applied development challenges — understanding how agro-pastoralists adapt to water scarcity, how rural food producers navigate supply chains, and how consumer behaviour shapes plant-based food markets across the African continent. In H2020, they have contributed community-level knowledge and field research capacity to large international consortia working on sustainable food systems and climate adaptation. Their distinctive value is ground-level social science expertise in Sub-Saharan African contexts that European research teams typically lack.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Both OSSREA projects started in 2020, so the keyword split reflects topical breadth rather than a time-based evolution — they entered H2020 participation working simultaneously on food value chains (InnoFoodAfrica) and climate-driven water and food security (DOWN2EARTH). The early-period keywords cluster around market-oriented food systems — packaging, processing, consumer behaviour, and supply chains — while the recent-period keywords shift toward environmental and humanitarian themes: hydrology, groundwater, agro-pastoralists, and international development. If this pattern holds in future projects, OSSREA may be moving from food market development toward the intersection of climate science and social resilience.

OSSREA appears to be expanding from food systems market research into climate-social research, positioning themselves at the intersection of water security, rural livelihoods, and international development — a growing priority for EU-Africa partnerships.

How they like to work

OSSREA participates exclusively as a consortium partner, never as coordinator, which is typical for African research organisations in H2020 — the coordination burden and administrative overhead favour European institutions. They have worked in large, multi-country consortia (32 unique partners across 13 countries across just 2 projects), indicating they function well within complex international research structures. Partners should expect OSSREA to contribute field research access, community engagement, and African social science expertise rather than technical infrastructure or project management.

With 32 unique consortium partners across 13 countries from only 2 projects, OSSREA is embedded in large, diverse international networks. Their partnerships likely span European research universities and African field partners, giving them a bridge role between EU-funded research and African ground-level implementation.

What sets them apart

OSSREA is one of very few African social science institutes with direct H2020 participation, giving them credibility as a bridge between European research funding and Sub-Saharan African field contexts. Their dual presence in food systems and climate-water research makes them unusually versatile for EU-Africa consortia that need both market-side and environmental-side social research. For any project targeting East or Southern Africa, OSSREA provides institutional legitimacy, community access, and social science methodology that no European partner can replicate remotely.

Highlights from their portfolio

• InnoFoodAfrica
  The larger of the two projects (EUR 146,250 to OSSREA), it tackles locally-driven development of plant-based food value chains across Africa — a commercially relevant topic with direct links to food industry innovation.
• DOWN2EARTH
  A climate-to-decision-support project running to 2025, it engages OSSREA on translating hydrology and groundwater data into actionable guidance for agro-pastoralist communities — a rare combination of hard climate science and social adaptation research.