AFRICAN RESEARCH RENAISSANCE

Stellenbosch University (SU), one of the 15 founding members of the alliance, hosts the Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Energy. This was officially launched on 20 August 2018 at a workshop at the Stellenbosch Institute of Advanced Study, with over 50 academics from across the continent in attendance.

Prof Hester Klopper, Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Strategy and Internationalisation at SU, welcomed delegates on the first day of the workshop, pledging support with the words “We believe ARUA slots in perfectly with Stellenbosch University’s Vision 2040 for being a research-intensive university”, a sentiment carried throughout the workshop. Prof Ernest Aryeetey, Secretary General of ARUA, also attended part of the workshop and reiterated ARUA’s mission with the broad message that it was “time for the continent’s researchers to come together”.

The CoE in Energy focuses on the intersection of food security, water supply and renewable energy. This is an important thematic area, as these research fields require a host of disciplines to analyse and solve the complexity of ensuring food, water and energy security on the continent. SU is especially supportive of ARUA’s research-intensive and collaborative mandate, as SU itself aims for the same mandate – research-intensive collaboration – across the continent.

The network envisages Africa’s researchers and institutions being globally competitive, while contributing to the generation of knowledge that will ensure socio-economic transformation on the continent. It therefore works towards strengthening the continent’s universities by building capacity through cooperation and significantly increasing research output.

The governance structure of ARUA uses the highest level of academic leadership within the network. The Board of Directors is made up of the vice-chancellors of each institution. This entity meets annually to set policy, conduct oversight and provide strategic objectives. Six members of the Board form the Executive Committee, which meets more regularly to carry out the responsibilities of oversight. ARUA’s day-to-day management is executed through the Secretary-General of ARUA.

ARUA uses its position of coordination to ensure that challenges to increased research output are countered. It recognises that there are very few research universities on the continent that can provide the necessary impact on their own. Coordination among the various universities is therefore required to generate a critical mass of research development. The continent’s institutions cannot work in isolation, whether there are resources or not, as the complexity of the challenges that the continent and the world face require expertise from across various disciplines and universities.

Africa has well-documented developmental challenges; ARUA brings together the universities through multi and interdisciplinary research centres and projects to find solutions for the myriad challenges. These range from food and energy security to sustainable cities and so forth. The network has awarded various members 13 CoEs. These centres concentrate the resources of the various members for the specific research themes. This pan-African network sits at a juncture where there are pressures across the continent to balance teaching and research at academic institutions. ARUA sees its role as one in research development and thus focuses on the advancement and enhancement of research excellence on the continent.

The current membership of ARUA consists of 16 universities from the southern, western and eastern subregions of the African continent. The members come from a pool of universities, each of which demonstrates interest in the growth of research on the continent and in playing a leading role within its own nation. ARUA will limit total membership to 25 universities due to the difficulty of managing a larger organisation and is currently seeking specifically to bring universities from more francophone countries and from north Africa into the network as well. This does not mean that ARUA will not include other universities, however. Indeed, as a network, it aims to engage with universities across the continent and the world to ensure that it achieves its research outcomes.