SASEL Lab
SASEL Lab
SASEL Lab
A five-year FRQ Science Diplomacy Research Chair program, delivered through the Food Convergence Innovation Africa Network (FCI-Africa), that bridges scientific research, policy making, and international collaboration to accelerate sustainable agrifood system transformation across Africa. The SSL Lab leads Work Package 1, the data and analytics backbone of the program.
The Food Convergence Innovation Africa Network (FCI-Africa) responds directly to the Kampala Declaration and the African Union’s shift from an agricultural development focus to a food systems approach under the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP) 2026 to 2036 agenda. The program positions science diplomacy as the interface between rigorous evidence, public policy, and cross-border collaboration on food security, nutrition, climate resilience, and inclusive prosperity.
The initiative is anchored in the FCI framework developed by Dubé and collaborators, which integrates technological, behavioural, social, and political economy perspectives around concrete real-world solutions. It builds on an established network of partners in Africa, North America, and Europe, and is organized around three complementary work packages covering data and analytics for policy outcomes (WP1), regional FCI hubs and capacity building (WP2), and environmental nutrition metrics and transnational policy dialogues (WP3).
By combining North-South collaboration with data infrastructure, decision analytics, and inclusive capacity building, FCI-Africa aims to transform research into action and support resilient, equitable food systems across the continent while strengthening Quebec’s leadership in international science diplomacy.
The McGill SSL Lab (Department of Bioresource Engineering, McGill University), under the leadership of Dr. Ebenezer Kwofie, leads Work Package 1 (WP1): Data and Analytics for Evidence-Based Agrifood Policy. WP1 provides the analytical foundation that the rest of the program relies on. The regional FCI hubs under WP2 apply the tools built in WP1, and the environmental nutrition metrics under WP3 extend the WP1 simulator architecture. In this way, WP1 functions as the digital and methodological backbone of FCI-Africa.
Our contribution draws on the lab’s track record in food systems financing intelligence, policy dashboard development, GPU-accelerated simulation, and AI-enabled decision support for agrifood systems.
We will conduct a cross-country assessment of data infrastructure, availability, and utilization in agrifood system policymaking across selected African nations. The assessment will:
We will design, build, and empirically validate a modular simulation platform that models the socioeconomic and environmental impacts of policy changes across diverse agri-ecological zones in Africa. Core features include:
The simulator will be co-developed with stakeholders, validated through partner country case studies, and deployed as a shared infrastructure for the regional FCI hubs in WP2 and for the environmental nutrition metrics work in WP3.
Our methods combine policy mapping and stakeholder analysis, scenario planning and foresight, participatory co-design, and multilevel governance analysis. Technical implementation draws on AI and machine learning for simulation, modular data pipeline architectures, and interoperable dashboard design informed by prior work on platforms such as FSFI.
Research Areas
CSIR Science and Technology Policy Research Institute
Ghana (Co-Chair: Dr. Rose Omari)
DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence in Food Security, University of Pretoria
South Africa (Co-Chair: Prof. Lise Kosten)
International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
Development Strategies and Governance Unit (Co-Chair: Dr. John Ulimwengu)
Food Systems Transformation Solutions
Dakar, Senegal (Dr. Fadel Ndiame)
Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa
Canada (Dr. Sandra Schillo)
Fonds de Recherche du Québec (FRQ), Science Diplomacy Research Chairs Program (CDS)
2025 to 2026 competition