The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) holds immense potential wealth but remains one of the least developed countries in the world. The country’s vast natural, social, and cultural resources present significant opportunities for development alongside notable risks. To harness these opportunities and address these challenges, the DRC urgently needs quality education and job creation able to support a generation of well-trained, innovative, and forward-thinking researchers who can lead the country toward sustainable development and prosperity. To address this, the overarching primary objective of this proposal is to strengthen the doctoral education ecosystem in the DRC. The ambition is to ensure a steady influx of highly skilled researchers capable of contributing to both the academic sector and the broader labor market. High-quality researchers are essential for two key reasons: to harness the country’s vast natural, social, and cultural resources in an evidence-based and sustainable manner; and to fulfill the urgent need for skilled researchers across public, private, and non-profit sectors, ensuring their expertise drives sustainable development and innovation. Three specific objectives are deployed to reach this ambition: (1) SEECR partners (Congolese and European) will co-create a shared, endogenously developed vision on the importance of research and quality doctoral education for the future of their country; (2) the creation of new or the strengthening of existing of doctoral schools, which are needed to deliver education and training, so as to increase the quality of doctoral research; the partners will co-develop regulatory frameworks, design the most appropriate organizational structures for their specific schools, and develop curricula and training modules, including digital.