Our Purpose & Objectives

Future Africa continuously engages and innovates across boundaries. The platform convenes and connects diverse collaborators from within and beyond the worlds of science, policy, business, civil society and the media in the pursuit of four strategic objectives. They include:

OBJECTIVE 1

To lead transformative research in, and for Africa.

Our Research Chairs continuously convene large transdisciplinary groups of stakeholders to tackle the most persistent problems facing our world today. In doing this, Future Africa spearheads innovation when it comes to deploying transformative research, informs and supports policy and public action for equitable and sustainable African societies, and inspires science-based sustainability transformations elsewhere in the world.

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OBJECTIVE 2

To develop Africa’s transformative research leadership capacities

We believe that the next generation of science systems leaders will act as agents of change in both science and society. We strive to act as a catalyst by training, mentoring and connecting a new generation of global research leaders who will lead the necessary transformations of science and society from within Africa.

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OBJECTIVE 3

To build transformative global partnerships for African research

A central pillar of our platform is a deep and diverse network of African and international collaborators. We carefully and diligently build this network that we believe will act as the gateway to Africa’s rich and diverse scientific community, while simultaneously projecting the voice of African sciences on the global stage. Our partnership model is based on equity and inclusiveness.

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OBJECTIVE 4

To foster a culture of dialogue and action for change in African research

To act as an effective catalyst for change, Future Africa aims to stimulate bold ideas and disruptive thinking on how research can make a meaningful difference to real world problems, by facilitating learning on how best to enable this. This objective is not only embedded in all the work we do, but is also more formally enshrined in the Future Africa Dialogue Series, which brings key stakeholders in the scientific community together to discuss and debate changes needed in global science systems.

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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.

About Us Bottom Section

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.