First ‘development university’ in the north approved

The government of the West African nation of Mauritania has approved the establishment of the first university in the north of the country focused on development needs, in the city of Nouadhibou. It will be ready to receive students for the 2025-26 academic year.

The draft decree for the establishment of the University of Nouadhibou was approved at a meeting of the Mauritanian Council of Ministers earlier in May.

A statement issued by the council said that the decree falls within the framework of the government’s ongoing efforts to strengthen and develop the higher education system. The new university will be located at the headquarters of the former Institute of the Sea.

“This university will offer innovative and diverse academic programmes in line with labour market requirements and national economic development needs,” the statement said.

The government described the draft decree as “an important step toward achieving the state’s aspirations to improve the level of higher education and expand the academic training base in vital disciplines, ensuring the development of human resources and strengthening the country’s capacity to meet economic and social challenges”.

This is in line with the government’s five-year implementation plan for its strategy for research and innovation and the 10-year strategy for higher education that jointly focus on making research and innovation a lever for socio-economic transformation as well as producing the scientific workforce for developing a knowledge economy.

In tandem with the approval of establishing a new university in Nouadhibou, the Tagant University and a science university are also planned, which will together complement the current Mauritanian public higher education system that consists of the University of Nouakchott, which accommodates about 70% of the student population, and the University of Islamic Sciences in Laayoune, along with several higher education schools and institutes.

Outline of the university

Mauritanian Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research Yacoub Ould Meine, revealed details of the new university in a televised press conference posted on its official Facebook page.

The university will receive 800 students distributed over three faculties, namely law and economics, science and technology, and the humanities, as well as a higher institute of technology along with a pre-existing institute of languages and interpretation.

The university will offer studies in fields needed for the development of the city of Nouadhibou, including marine sciences, energy engineering, maritime activities, law, mining law, hydrocarbons, risk management, sociology of migration, population movement, as well as physics, chemistry and computer science.

Linking the university with local needs

Al-Tohamy Sayed Mohamed, the secretary general of the General Union of Mauritanian Students (UGEM), told University World News via WhatsApp: “Establishing a university in Nouadhibou is an important step in the right direction and is necessary for several reasons, including strengthening decentralisation in higher education and reducing pressure on higher education institutions in the capital, Nouakchott, which suffer from overcrowding.”

Mohamed said the new institution will provide many students with higher education services closer to home and will make it unnecessary for them to travel to Nouakchott to study, which is unaffordable for many low-income families.

It will also help female students to complete their postgraduate studies because they are unable to travel for their graduate studies. The new university will also help link educational research programmes with local development and focus on priority topics for local communities, both economically and socially.

Driving sustainable development

Mohamed Yeslem Elbagher, a former Mauritanian researcher at the University of Nouakchott, told University World News: “The new university will play a vital role in local development by bridging the gap between academia and the community, fostering innovation, and providing skilled labour and knowledge.

“To achieve that, the new university must focus on initiatives like community outreach programmes, partnerships with local businesses, and educational initiatives tailored to local needs, along with supporting entrepreneurship by creating innovation hubs and incubators for driving socio-economic growth,” Elbagher said.

“The new university should also establish home-grown collaborative postgraduate programmes through promoting networking among local higher education institutions, research and technological centres, the science-based private sector, and the industry for sharing their human and financial resources and infrastructure capabilities.

“Having local postgraduate programmes will help in developing the scientific workforce needed for facing developmental challenges for paving the road for the development of an innovation-based economy as well as achieving sustainable development goals,” he said.

Research capabilities

Mauritania ranks 126th among the 133 economies featured in the Global Innovation Index (GII 2024), which lists economies according to their innovation capabilities.

While Mauritania’s main innovation strength is university-industry research and development collaboration (52), its main innovation weaknesses are research and development (120), knowledge and technology outputs (127), high-tech exports (130), public research-industry co-publications (106) and human capital and research (120).

Mauritania ranks 135th out of 141 countries in the 2024 Global Knowledge Index (GKI), which measures knowledge performance worldwide using seven main sectoral indices, including higher education alongside research, development and innovation.