Robust HE systems – A bedrock for research capacity

Building higher education systems that will support research capacity among young scholars in Africa’s institutions of higher learning will be critical in the quest for sustainable development and the building of greater research capacity on the continent, according to German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) President Professor Margret Wintermantel.

Speaking at the recent Young Scholars in Africa Conference hosted by DAAD and held in Nairobi, Kenya, she said the future of development is embedded in research and in young scholars, hence the need for continued investment and support of universities to produce researchers and research solutions for Africa.

“This conference has a big focus on finding ways of having a better higher education system in Africa,” she said. “We believe that real development and innovation is based on a robust higher education system.”

She said the continent has an average of 200 researchers per million people in comparison to the world average of 1,150 researchers per million. This shortage of researchers calls for governments and other education stakeholders to conduct more research on the challenges facing postgraduates in Africa in order to find solutions that will help increase the number of researchers and improve their quality, she said.

Other participants emphasised the need for strong research ecosystems that could yield innovations and technologies to address challenges facing the continent, such as the burden of disease, climate change and food insecurity, and create African societies driven by research-based policies and decision-making.

Under-utilisation of research funds

Contrary to widespread reports on the challenges of building a research base in Africa due to underfunding, delegates to the Young Scholars in Africa conference expressed concern about the under-utilisation of existing research funds.

James Jowi, executive director of the African Network for Internationalization of Education, said some research funds, like that administered by the Inter-University Council for East Africa, remain largely unutilised, with few proposals from African researchers being received. “This really questions the facet that funding is a problem for research in African universities,” said Jowi.

Highlighting a comparable experience in Nigeria, Dr Suleiman Ramon-Yusuf, head of the Directorate of Research Innovation and Information Technology at Nigeria’s National Universities Commission, said capacity gaps in research grant-writing and lack of accountability had increased the under-utilisation of research funds in Nigeria.

He said close to NGN3 billion (US$8 million) allocated for national research remained unutilised in Nigeria in the last three years. He suggested that early career researchers and young scholars team up in order to advance strong proposals.

Weaknesses in the research grant proposals received include poor budgeting and lack of clarity around research questions or objectives.

Jowi noted that some of the research proposals are rejected because they fail to respond to the needs of the African people.

Delegates urged early career researchers to apply for small research grants they can use to groom themselves and build their careers. These small grants, according to the delegates, will help early career scientists understand the research ecosystem and prepare them to apply for bigger grants and compete globally.

“Young academics and early career researchers should not give up in the event their research proposal for a grant is rejected,” said Ramon-Yusuf.

International and regional mobility

Mobility among young researchers was an effective means to increase the capacity of young scholars in research, according to Professor Heidi Prozesky from the Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. Mobility can help young scholars access postgraduate courses not offered locally, and increase research publications in international journals through collaborations, she said.

The rewards of a career in research also need to be made more apparent, according to Gladys Mosomtai, an alumnus of the DAAD scholarship programme. “We really need to convince young people that a research and university career is rewarding,” said Mosomtai, who is currently a PhD fellow at the Nairobi-headquartered International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology. She said there was a need for more young researchers to work on innovations to improve livelihoods in Africa.

Delegates acknowledged the growing initiatives to support young scholars around the continent, including efforts by governments in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa to improve research and teaching quality through national research funds, and the establishment in other countries of higher education commissions focused on quality assurance and transforming higher education on the continent.

However, Damtew Teferra, professor of higher education at South Africa’s University of KwaZulu-Natal, highlighted the dangers of prioritising quantity over quality when it came to academic publications.

He said publication purely for promotion is a bad culture that young scholars should avoid. He urged scholars instead to pursue quality as opposed to quantity in order to increase their global competitiveness and ability to provide meaningful solutions to the local problems facing Africa.