In a quest to produce research that has a transformative impact on Africa and the world at large, the Senate of the University of Pretoria (UP) convened its leadership and special guests for the 2025 UP Senate Conference with a common goal in mind: to advance the University’s research framework to develop tangible actions for accelerated and amplified impact.

The conference, hosted under the theme ‘Research Futures: In Pursuit of Transformative Impact’, comprised three components: thought leadership keynotes and talks to set the scene; panel discussions to mobilise interest and enthusiasm to push boundaries; and action-oriented strategic conversations to turn ideas into reality. The focus was to unpack what transformative impact means for a research-intensive institution like UP and how it can be achieved.

“Transformative impact starts with a group of people from different disciplines, professions and walks of life coming together to share knowledge,” said UP Vice-Chancellor and Principal Professor Francis Petersen. “They listen and learn from one another, make sense together, and discuss how to work together and effect change on a scale that delivers a tangible transformative impact that changes people’s lives for the better on all levels, and advances society in a positive direction.”

Prof Petersen added that societies, governments, education sectors, NGOs, private sectors, industry and commerce need to work together, because the future can only be shaped through their collaboration, nationally, continentally and internationally.

Increasingly high levels of unemployment, hunger and poverty; worsening inequality; environmental degradation and biodiversity loss; conflict; gender inequality; geopolitical instability and the crisis of democracy are interrelated issues and expressed as priority challenges in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as adopted by the United Nations and the Africa Union’s Africa Agenda 2063. Prof Petersen said academic institutions and researchers around the world are facing pressure to demonstrate the social and economic impact of their research, and that this calls for researchers who can collaborate across disciplines and outside academia.

He said the recently released Bloomsbury Handbook of Sustainability in Higher Education raised all these issues. The handbook features 65 international authors, including students, who explore the transformative change needed for sustainability and the delivery of the SDGs. According to Prof Petersen, co-editor Prof Wendy M Purcell, the former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Plymouth and now a US-based scholar, points out that old-style bureaucratic processes in higher education are slowing down the transformative impact required for sustainable development.

“Prof Purcell says universities and all higher education institutions need to transform internally and externally to address the SDG agenda with fresh eyes and as the lens through which we look at teaching and learning, research, innovation and engagement,” Prof Petersen said.

He pointed out that at UP, it was clearly understood that the challenges at hand cannot be addressed by a single entity, and that to make a real difference, partnership and collaboration is needed. Additionally, African universities need to significantly increase research capacity, and the way to achieve this is through equitable research collaborations that strengthen and develop the continent’s scientific capabilities.

“We have to produce far greater numbers of future-skilled graduates and PhDs to scale up sustainability and economic development on the continent,” Prof Petersen said. “What is encouraging is that so many universities are committed to achieving this together and to coming together as powerful drivers of change in society through the transformative impact of higher education and through educating current and future students to be transformational leaders who positively impact society. Our young people need to be prepared for this complex world and to be well educated for the future world of work.”

He added that universities need to pay attention to feedback from the job market – that the skills and graduates being  produced are not always aligned with what is required. For instance, South Africa produces a high number of law graduates, and to plan for sufficient opportunities for them, the curriculum needs to include rapidly evolving areas such as data literacy, digital law and cyber law.

“We need to regard our graduates as global citizens, where skills and qualifications in this connected world need to be interchangeable with those required on the continent and globally.”

One of the keynote speakers was Prof Ernest Aryeetey, former Secretary-General of the African Research Universities Alliance, a network of 16 flagship universities in Africa, whose strategic priorities as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana included developing the university into a research-intensive institution that supports structural transformation in Ghana and Africa.

“The past decade has witnessed some growth in Africa’s contribution to the global generation of knowledge,” Prof Aryeetey said. “Even though the growth cuts across several disciplinary areas, there is still significant inequality in the region and areas of focus. National governments will have to be more deliberate in how they support research in pursuit of development and transformation.”

Prof Aryeetey emphasised that Africa’s research output previously constituted less than 1% of global research, but this has increased to about 2 to 3%. There are several discrepancies by discipline: science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) research accounts for only 29% of Africa’s total research output, compared to an average of 68% for Malaysia. Additionally, Africa’s research and innovation landscape showed that despite the progress, gross expenditure on research and development remains well below the world average – less than 0.45% of GDP; this is set against the world average of 1.7% and the African Union target of 1%.

“Research growth in Africa is on the right trajectory, but needs to gather pace to tackle the region’s development challenges,” Prof Aryeetey said. “Some principles must guide our conduct of research to ensure relevance and rigour. We must keep in mind that collaboration is key, and there is a need for strong investment in research by African governments and institutions.”