Cluster of Research Excellence (CORE): Politics of Sustainable Development

The Africa-Europe Cluster of Research Excellence (CoRE) focused on “The Politics of Sustainable Development: Squaring the Circle of Science and Democracy”, launched September 2023, by the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA) and The Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities (The Guild), brings together a diverse team of researchers from various academic disciplines, including the social sciences, humanities, natural sciences, and law to uncover the nature of politics around sustainable development, how it affects political decisions, and how these are contested.

The CoRE team will focus on developing a knowledge base on governance for sustainable development and strengthening the science-policy interface required for societal transformation. In addition, the team will also train a minimum of 40 PhDs at participating universities in Africa over 10 years. These future leaders will receive training in applying evidence-based research findings to design and implement policies related to climate and sustainable development in Africa and Europe.

The CORE team members consist of the University of Pretoria (represented by Future Africa), the University of Oslo, the University of Nairobi, the University of Addis Ababa, UCLouvain, the University of Malawi, and Utrecht University.

The Africa-Europe Clusters of Research Excellence (CoRE) brings together distinguished researchers from universities and research institutes across both continents, from ARUA, The Guild and beyond the two networks. Each addresses a key societal challenge, framed by the Global Gateway’s AU-EU Innovation Agenda, in the context of local perspectives to ensure maximum scientific and societal impact. Since the launch of this Africa-Europe research cooperation initiative in June 2022, there are now 20 CoRE’s, involving over 250 researchers in 60 Universities as well as research institutes.