The Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship, and the Univeristy of Pretoria, are hosts of the African Global Hub of the BRIDGES Sustainability Science Coalition. The Hub is overseen by Centre Director Professor James Ogude, and includes Dr Tafadzwa Mushonga (CAS) and Dr Melanie Murcott (Department of Public Law, UP).

BRIDGES is a global sustainability science coalition established by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation’s (UNESCO) Management of Social Transformations Programme. BRIDGES was established in March 2021 at the UNESCO Management of Social Transformations Programme Intergovernmental Council.

The BRIDGES Sustainability Science Coalition looks to implement practices that foster potentially transformative collaborations across the academic domains in the humanities, the arts, the social sciences and the natural sciences, and drawing on societal partners and communities of practice. The coalition aims to harness the capabilities of higher education and research institutions to stimulate and guide vital transdisciplinary efforts to meet the challenges and goals of the U.N.’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The Environmental Humanities Programme and the African Observatory, also hosted by the Centre, are already building a regional network of individual researchers, institutions of higher learning and research groupings in Africa, and are prioritising the co-designing and co-production of knowledge, and collaborative transformative action.

(Photo of the Kazungulu Bridge / Credit: Government of Botswana)

RECENT HIGHLIGHTS

MEDIA: Watch the BRIDGES Launch
UP launches BRIDGES Sustainability Science Coalition