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0. Introduction

1. Purpose and audience of the strategy

This bundle sets out the internal funding strategy for CoRE-Math. Its purpose is to provide a coherent basis for deciding which funding pathways CoRE-Math should invest in, how different opportunities should be assessed, and how concrete funding work should be prioritised and sequenced over time.

The bundle has been developed in response to the fact that CoRE-Math must engage with several fundamentally different types of funders and build the basis for a more active and diversified funding effort. This strategy is intended to provide a coherent, longer-term framework for that work.

The intended audience is the CoRE-Math Management Team and Steering Committee, with the possibility of wider use within ARUA/The Guild and, where relevant, within ISP and Makerere governance. The documents are therefore written as internal working and reference documents, not as external communication to funders.

2. Structure of the strategy

The strategy does not start from individual calls or funders. Instead, it is built around a small number of interlinked documents that together make explicit:

what CoRE-Math is set up to do,

how different parts of the funding world actually operate, and

what this implies for which types of funding CoRE-Math can realistically and usefully pursue.

At the core of the strategy is a simple logic:

CoRE-Math’s activity profile and role need to be explicit.

CoRE-Math is not a general research funder, a scholarship scheme, or a loose network. It is built to support a specific set of activities and institutional functions. These are captured in the Strategic Activity Framework (A–F), which defines the mission space within which funding opportunities are assessed.

Funding opportunities have to be understood in terms of how funders actually operate.

Different funders support various types of initiatives, including individuals, institutions, systems, events, networks, or long-term programmes, through competitive calls, negotiated programmes, political agreements, or philanthropic instruments. Many apparently attractive funders are not well-positioned to support the kinds of activities CoRE-Math is designed to carry out. The Funding Landscape, therefore, focuses not on listing funders but on analysing funding logics, instruments, and constraints.

Choices, exclusions, and sequencing are unavoidable.

CoRE-Math cannot engage with the whole funding landscape. Time, institutional capacity, and political room for manoeuvre are limited. The strategy is therefore meant to support explicit prioritisation: identifying funding pathways that are realistically accessible and strategically meaningful, distinguishing them from those that are marginal or misaligned, and sequencing efforts over time.

The documents in this bundle are designed to support this logic in a structured way.

3. The documents and their roles

1. Activity Framework

Underlying question: What should CoRE-Math actually do?

Contents: CoRE-Math’s activity areas and institutional role (A–F).

Purpose: To provide a stable internal reference frame against which all funding opportunities are assessed.

2. Funding Landscape and Strategic Posture 2026–2029

Underlying question: How does the funding world relevant to CoRE-Math operate?

Contents: Relevant categories of funders, typical instruments, access modes, and operating logics.

Purpose: To support informed judegment about what different funders can and cannot realistically support.

3. Funder–Activity Alignment Matrices

Underlying question: Where is there real alignment, and where is there not?

Contents: Two complementary alignment matrices derived from the same underlying assessments:

a detailed funder-by-activity matrix mapping CoRE-Math’s activity framework (A–F) against specific funders and funding instruments, and

a tiered, activity-centred matrix grouping funders by relevance level (● / ◐ / ○) for each activity area.

Purpose: To make fits, gaps, structural constraints, and potential leverage points explicit and discussable. The detailed matrix serves as a reference and diagnostic tool for assessing individual funders and opportunities; the tiered matrix provides a synthetic strategic view highlighting concentrations, dependencies, and structural gaps across the funding landscape.

4. Funding Synthesis Note

Underlying question: What follows strategically from this analysis?

Contents: Strategic findings emerging from the activity framework, funding landscape, and alignment analysis.

Purpose: To distil strategic implications, priority funding pathways, exclusions, and boundary conditions.

5. Rolling Funding & Engagement Plan 2026–2028

Underlying question: What will we actually do in the coming years?

Contents: Planned engagements, preparatory actions, and anticipated application trajectories (2026–2028).

Purpose: To translate the strategy into operational action. This document is intended to change frequently.

4. How the bundle is intended to be used

The bundle is intended to serve as a shared internal reference rather than a static report.

Documents 1 and 2 provide the basic descriptive foundations.

Document 3 serves as the primary analytical tool.

Document 4 is the primary strategic reference.

Document 5 is the active working document and should always be traceable back to the strategic reasoning in Document 4.

In particular, significant new funding engagements or shifts in focus should be talked about with explicit reference to Documents 3 and 4.

Taken together, the bundle is intended to support continuity over time, informed discussion within CoRE-Math governance, and consistency in how CoRE-Math positions itself towards potential funders and partners.

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