The South Africa/ France PROTEA Programme is a bilateral incentive Programme dedicated to strengthening the South Africa/French collaborative research. It is co-funded by both the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Higher Education and Research from the French side, and the National Research Foundation from the South African side. The development of the PROTEA Programme was based on a shared conviction regarding the importance of science, technology and innovation in building and sustaining a knowledge-based economy. It is a financial instrument supporting mobility and training of “incoming and outgoing” researchers, contributing to the development of new partnerships and to the strengthening of advanced scientific and technological exchanges between research institutions in South Africa and France. It therefore provides a springboard for initiating, developing and expanding research projects. This Programme was launched in 1997 and in December 2017 the two countries celebrated its 20^th anniversary and agreed, based on the successes that have been achieved in the past 20-year, to continue investing in it hence the launch of the 2018 call.