Universities ponder the power of North-South partnerships

African universities need to increase partnerships and collaborations with institutions of higher learning from the Global North, especially in research and publication, to help spur sustainable development, say international experts.

Speaking at a meeting held in Nairobi, Kenya, on 16 March, the experts drawn from academia and research organisations said that such collaborations would help the continent realise national and regional development goals and the United Nations’ Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development.

The meeting, dubbed the “The Power of Partnership in Strengthening Research in Higher Education”, was organised by the African Academy of Sciences (AAS) in collaboration with US-headquartered Yale University.

The executive directors of the AAS, the Nairobi-based International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE), the African Population and Health Research Center and the president of Yale University agreed that African universities need to take a leadership role in research that can address the problems facing the continent, such as climate change and food insecurity.

"There is need for our universities to work in collaboration with global research institutions to help Africa foster new directions in research," said Segenet Kelemu, the executive director of ICIPE.

Kelemu, who is a former fellow of the African Academy of Sciences, challenged African universities to focus their training towards meeting local demands. She said collaborations with universities in the Global North would help local institutions tap into practical skills and knowledge that can be used to address local problems.

Peter Salovey, the president of Yale University, said collaborations between universities in Africa and the Global North should be faculty-to-faculty. This, he said, would help to address the specific research needs of key areas of development, especially in the health sector.

“These collaborations will help to advance science and address challenges to be solved by science such as the burden of disease and climate change,” said Salovey, explaining that these challenges are global and cannot be addressed by one institution or nation in isolation.

Citing the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, Salovey said that the disease was controlled as a result of research collaborations between African and international organisations and governments from the Global North.

Additionally, Salovey said there is a need to increase international collaborations on authorships and publications, especially in geosciences, mathematics and biological sciences. “We need to utilise the internet and other technological tools that can help reduce logistical challenges to collaborations that can help us increase publications,” said Salovey.

Salovey, who announced scholarships to African postgraduate students in Nairobi, said that Yale University had signed a collaboration with Kenya’s Strathmore University in the faculty of business and aims to expand research collaborations across Africa.

African Academy of Sciences Executive Director Nelson Torto described research as the pathway to change. Torto, who is also a professor of analytical chemistry, said that the participation of African universities in both South-South and South-North research partnerships would help African students educated on other continents leverage their knowledge for the transformation of the continent.

Torto referred to the Alliance for Accelerating Excellence in Science in Africa as a pan-African programme successfully promoting partnerships in research to help realise lasting solutions to development challenges in Africa.

The AAS and its partners have recently launched two mobility funds – the Science and Language Mobility Scheme Africa and the Africa-India Mobility Fund, aimed at increasing scientific collaboration among African and Indian researchers. The funding for the latter, which totals US$500,000, will facilitate short-term visits for about 100 researchers from African and Indian universities and research institutes.