For organisations with a research or R&D need and a budget to meet it.
You know the question your business needs answered. We turn it into a research project that competent people compete to deliver, and we manage it to completion.
A completed piece of research, a single contract and a single point of contact, and a competitive process that puts your brief in front of providers you would not otherwise have reached.
For organisations with a research need and no budget to meet it.
Most research funding is not open to companies. Grants generally require an academic principal investigator and an eligible institution, so a business with a legitimate research need often has no route to the money that exists to answer exactly that kind of question.
We assess whether your need is fundable, pair it with a research partner who can apply, and build the proposal.
A clear answer on fundability before you spend anything substantial, an eligible route to funds you cannot apply for directly, and a proposal built to the funder's own criteria.
For organisations holding intellectual property, a prototype or a product that has not reached a market.
A great deal of African innovation stops at prototype. The work is done, sometimes protected, and then stalls, because nobody has established what the asset is actually worth, what remains unproven about it, or who would pay for it.
We assess the asset honestly, and then help you take the route the evidence supports.
An evidenced view of what you are holding, and a recommended route with the reasoning behind it. A recommendation to stop is a legitimate outcome, and we will give it if that is what the evidence says.
Every project we commission is published as an open call. We do not quietly allocate work to people we already know.
Openness is the point. It is what gives a client access to providers they would never have found, and what gives a capable research team in Nigeria or Kenya a route to work they would never have been invited to bid for.
Programmes researchers can apply to, and funded research briefs published as open calls. Calls are published here as they are commissioned, and every one is an open competition that any registered participant in the relevant domain can bid for.
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Thinkng Ignite is a 12-week cohort programme that equips emerging researchers with applied research capability, and above all with the ability to plan, write and manage funded research proposals. Participants commit around 10 hours a week across four domains: • Research knowledge and techniques • Professional conduct and personal effectiveness • Research ethics, governance and funding • Research engagement, influence and societal impact All courses are delivered on edX and carry verified certificates. Graduates enter the Thinkng research talent pool and the opportunity partner network across industry, government and research organisations. Cohort 1 is open to Nigerian nationals and residents. Applications close 25 September 2026.
Apply NowFull programme detail, eligibility and fee