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.

As a pan-African platform, Future Africa is all about profound systemic transformations: of societies towards equitable and sustainable futures, and of the role of science in securing those futures.

HOW WE OPERATE

Future Africa’s mode of operating follows principles of common purpose and shared value. Our collaborators from across the University of Pretoria, from other universities in South Africa and the continent, and the wider global community engage with and support Future Africa in diverse ways. They share ideas and advice, they contribute expertise, they lead on Future Africa research and training activities, and they draw on our resources – including expert knowledge and networks of influence – to advance transformative research in their home institutions.

Future Africa acts in broadly defined Challenge Domains (Research Areas)

• Sustainable Food Systems
• People Health Places (One Health)
• Sustainability Transformations
• African Science and Technology Futures
• Global Equity in Africa

In each domain, our Research Chairs lead comprehensive programmes of work aligned with our four strategic objectives.

• Leading transformative research in and for Africa

Spearheading innovation in deploying transformative research approaches, informing, and supporting policy and public action for equitable and sustainable African societies, and inspiring sciencebased sustainability transformations elsewhere in the world.

• Developing Africa's transformative research leadership capacities

Training, mentoring, and connecting a new generation of global research leaders who will shape necessary systems change in science and society from within Africa.

• Building transformative global partnership for African research

Convening relevant expertise and influence across Africa’s rich and diverse scientific community and connecting them to global networks that will take forward agendas defined in and for Africa.

• Fostering a culture of dialogue and action for change in African research

Stimulating bold ideas and disruptive thinking on how research can make a difference to real-world problems, facilitating learning on how best to enable this.

Visit the Future Africa Website