Africa Science Leadership Programme

The African Science Leadership Programme (ASLP) is an initiative of the University of Pretoria and the Global Young Academy, with the support of Robert Bosch Stiftung. It aims to grow mid-career African academics in the areas of thought leadership, team management and research development, to enable them to contribute to the development of a new paradigm for science in Africa, focused on its contribution to solving the complex issues facing both Africa and the global community.

The leadership programme aims to:

  • Identify early- to mid-career academics who have demonstrated leadership potential and an interest in developing key leadership skills
  • Support them to apply the acquired skills to projects that are relevant to the academic development on the continent and its impact on society
  • Create a network of academic leaders on the continent, spanning not only across countries, but also across disciplinary boundaries
  • Advance a curriculum for academic leadership development which can be utilised in other institutions in Africa and beyond.
ASLP 2023 ASLP 2022 ASLP 2021 ASLP 2020 ASLP 2019 ASLP 2018 ASLP 2017 ASLP 2016 ASLP 2015
Dr Connie Nshemereirwe
Dr Connie Nshemereirwe View profile
cnshemereirwe@umu.ac.ug
Project Coordinator
Ms Sharon Mpho Khalo mpho.khalo@futureafrica.science
Project Leader
Prof Bernard Slippers bernard.slippers@up.ac.za

Our Project

  • Africa Science Funding & Embracing African Science

    This project seeks to assess the status of science in Africa in three critical areas: - an assessment of what research is produced in different African regions, - assess the level of interdisciplinary research with a focus on crafting holistic solutions for Africa's challenges, and- an assessment of science funding in Africa.

  • Africa WILL

    This initiative will explore the existing knowledge about women in science and examine societies perception of women in science. We aim to identify the best practices that will foster more women engagement in science in Africa.

  • Afro-Science Snippets

    This project aims to develop a mobile application that will assist scientists to communicate in sound-bites.This application will alert users and package messages as sound-bites with links to research summaries.Users will select the type of alerts they want to receive e.g type of disease and format of message.

  • Bio Medical Africa Innovation

    Biomedical R&D is a key to African Development but a major barrier to success is access to research materials. Cost, delivery time, source, procurement methods and government restriction/allowances will be explored.

  • Capacity Development in Africa

    The ultimate goal is to maintain a sustainable mentor-mentee cycle for purpose of capacity building and networking.In addition, the project shall leverage on online resources/software to enhance transdisciplinary research collaboration within the network,as well as improve communication and performance between mentors and mentees.

  • Coming to Africa - ALSP 2015

    This project aims to probe the values of our culture for effective leadership and cultivating an inclusive mindset by bringing together willing scientists and community elders.

  • Integrating Community participation into appropriate technology development and implementation

    Appropriate technology implementation should foster community empowerment and sustainability by community participation. Successful implementation this requires community engagement through technology conceptualization, development, implementation, assessment and impact evaluation.

  • Gender & Science in Africa - ASLP 2015

    Gender & Science in Africa is a project that aims at promoting and fostering Female African Leadership in Science by setting forth an ongoing research agenda that will tackle cross regional and trans-disciplinary issues related to the question of Gender and Science across Africa.

  • Leaders without Borders - ASLP 2016

    This Projects aims to Africanise Science leadership, develop a critical-mass of qualified science leaders in Africa and create a stronger and sustainable network for Africa scientific leaders reflected in the quality of science.

  • Science Capacity Building in Africa

    This initiative will stimulate training programmes that will focus on producing researchers with the capacity to conduct, publish and lead locally relevant and high-quality research that will have socio-economic impact in Africa. Our approach is to create models and make use of existing ones that will support the African-led development of world-class researchers and research leaders.

  • Youth Development & Empowerment - ASLP 2016

    As scientists, this project will aim to empower the youth to acknowledge and rely on the skills and resources they have, be independent, responsible and take ownership of the available infrastructure so that they no longer resort to unsafe and unhealthy behavior to deal with their problems.

  • Science literacy & Transdisciplinary Communication

    The project aims to develop science leadership in Africa through science literacy and transdisciplinary communication by simplifying scientific concepts in a manner that can easily be understood and utilised by communities.

  • Science Leadership: An African Perspective

    This project focuses on redressing the problems of African Scientists with regards to Science leadership and management skills. As such the SLAP working group will come up with a literature review on Science Leadership in Africa, development of a curriculum for African Science Leadership and motivate colleagues to work on mentorship.

  • FAMS - Forum for African Marine Science

    The goal is to connect African scholars and their institutions working in Marine Sciences. Ocean Sciences in Africa could benefit from extensive research and development initiatives, yet these are scattered, mostly regionally, and insufficient to the task.

  • Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services for Tshwane

    The BEST project aims to investigate landscape design practices for biodiversity enhancement, explore native garden design ecologies in urban spaces, and develop local guidelines for ecological landscape design that are socio-culturally and ecologically relevant. Well designed urban green spaces could contribute to social well-being and ecological functioning.

  • WE - Africa Lab

    WE-Africa is an alliance of likeminded scholars and practitioners who share a common concern about the current socio-economic conditions in which we live and are willing to work together to promote a transition to a wellbeing-based economy for Africa. It is an action-research network, which aims to consolidate evidence for change while focusing on building a new economy.

  • UP Big Q

    The #UPBigQ aims to grow the University of Pretoria's research culture, get everyone excited about responding to questions with real-life relevance, encourage collaboration across the university and communicate to the general public that we're doing research that matters.

  • Freedom from Violence

    A multidisciplinary international research collaboration aimed at contributing to the realisation of SDG Goal 16 in Africa – promoting peaceful societies, access to justice, and effective, accountable and inclusive institutions.

  • Flexible Thinkers for Future Africa - ASLP 2015

    There is a wealth of educational material on the world wide web, but this is largely inaccessible to the majority of learners in Africa, who do not have a high-speed internet connection. This project aims at looking for ways to increase awareness of these resources, and also of creating offline access through more accessible media.

  • Bioprospecting and Bioecomony

    The aim of the project is to combine, biodiversity, science and traditional knowledge; and make it accessible to the modern market by tapping into the rich pool of diversity for medicinal and cosmeceutical purposes.

  • Science Village Hub