About Future Africa
Future Africa is the University of Pretoria’s collaborative platform for research that works across the sciences and with society to address Africa’s biggest and most urgent contemporary challenges. Our fundamental purpose is to develop and unleash the transformative potential of African sciences to inform and inspire a future of thriving African societies.
Future Africa is a neutral platform that convenes and supports collaboration with a focus on:
Transformative research approaches – We advocate research that contributes concrete solutions to complex, real-world problems and that informs and supports processes of profound social change towards global sustainability.
We define transformative research as collaborative research that is:
- Integrative: we enable meaningful interdisciplinarity, drawing on knowledge, methods, and approaches across scientific fields and disciplines, and across the fundamental to applied research divide
- Engaged: we advance transdisciplinarity, working with stakeholders from policy, the private sector, civil society, and the media as partners in the co-design and co-production of solutions-oriented knowledge
- Holistic: we look at problems from a systems perspective, making sense of their complexity by focusing on the wider, interactive systems of which they are a part
- Digitally enabled: we harness cutting-edge tools of the digital revolution to fuel scientific discovery and to reach the widest possible number of stakeholders.
- Futures literate: we encourage the development and use of futures literacy in anticipating and shaping alternative future narratives and strategies.
The future of Africa in a global context – We work at a pan-African level to address the most critical, interconnected social, economic, and environmental problems facing African societies and, in doing so, we aim to influence and accelerate sustainability transformations across the world.
The role of early and mid-career researchers as agents of change in both science and society – We invest in the development of the next generation of global research leaders, fostering their full and meaningful engagement in how we think and what we do at Future Africa.
Future Africa provides a gateway to Africa’s rich and diverse scientific community, building equitable global partnerships, and projecting the voice of African sciences on the global stage.
Link to: Transformative research leadership capacity development
Objective 2
To develop Africa’s transformative research leadership capabilities.
Link to: Global Networks and Partnerships
Objective 3
To build transformative global partnerships for African research.
Link to: Dialogue and Action for Change
Objective 4
To foster a culture of dialogue and action for change in African research.
March 2019
Future Africa was launched
623
There are currently 623 researchers in our ConnectUs community
53 plant species
There are at least 53 plant species in our beautiful indigenous garden
Future Africa is committed to advancing interdisciplinary scholarship, developing leadership skills, and transforming the African continent by bringing together a diverse group of scholars to address its grand challenges.
Future Africa functions as a platform within the University of Pretoria. The University’s Executive evaluates Future Africa’s overall performance based on the Future Africa Director’s reporting against annual Institutional Action and Financial Plans.
Our diverse team is driven by a shared vision and passion to unlock the transformative potential of African sciences and create a future where thriving African societies lead the way.
At Future Africa, we’re proud to work with a diverse range of collaborators who share our commitment to excellence and innovation. Our partners come from a variety of sectors, but they all share a passion for harnessing the potential of African science to improve the world around us.
As a collaborative platform, Future Africa’s mode of operating is guided by principles of common purpose and shared value. Future Africa has a wide network of collaborators from the University of Pretoria, other universities in South Africa and the continent, as well as the global academy.
Future Africa is a platform that acts as an incubator for transdisciplinary research projects; as a connector for scholars and teams working on similar problems; and as a physical and intellectual space for catalysing needed change in African and global science systems.
Future Africa is committed to advancing interdisciplinary scholarship, developing leadership skills, and transforming the African continent by bringing together a diverse group of scholars to address its grand challenges.
Future Africa functions as a platform within the University of Pretoria. The University’s Executive evaluates Future Africa’s overall performance based on the Future Africa Director’s reporting against annual Institutional Action and Financial Plans.
Our diverse team is driven by a shared vision and passion to unlock the transformative potential of African sciences and create a future where thriving African societies lead the way.
At Future Africa, we’re proud to work with a diverse range of collaborators who share our commitment to excellence and innovation. Our partners come from a variety of sectors, but they all share a passion for harnessing the potential of African science to improve the world around us.
As a collaborative platform, Future Africa’s mode of operating is guided by principles of common purpose and shared value. Future Africa has a wide network of collaborators from the University of Pretoria, other universities in South Africa and the continent, as well as the global academy.
Future Africa is a platform that acts as an incubator for transdisciplinary research projects; as a connector for scholars and teams working on similar problems; and as a physical and intellectual space for catalysing needed change in African and global science systems.