British Academy: The UK's National Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences

Preface

There is a vital need to foster a strong humanities and social science research community in Africa that can take its full place in international research networks. In a period of rapid and often turbulent change, it is essential that African scholars are able to chart and to understand the transformations occurring in African societies and cultures and their impact on the quality of people’s lives. Effective policies, critical to the continent’s future, can only be developed with deep and textured knowledge of the societies in which they are to be implemented.

This report, the culmination of a two-year process of reflection and discussion among African and UK scholars initiated by the British Academy and the Association of Commonwealth Universities, examines the practical steps that need to be taken to strengthen humanities and social science research in Africa. It draws on an extensive survey of the African university community, and on the discussions of a subsequent conference in Nairobi which brought together into a remarkably frank and lively dialogue the diverse parties involved in research development in Africa – senior university officers as well as junior staff, administrators as well as researchers, established academics as well as the new generation.

This summary provides a persuasive analysis of some of the hurdles to be overcome – the severe internal resource and organisational barriers, the difficulties of providing incentives for young researchers in terms of time and career paths, the complexities of ensuring that external assistance in research training is effective in developing research capacity within Africa and the problematic impact of certain forms of donor funding. Inter alia, it underlines the importance of real and sustained collaborative research partnerships, both within Africa and between African researchers and those in other countries – partnerships that generate trust among participants, that can draw on the knowledge of all parties and that provide a context for mutual learning. It highlights the need for a more integrated research funding system that can provide a ‘ladder’ for the progression of good collaborative research teams from small-scale intensive projects to test initial research ideas and methodologies to large scale projects that can provide rigorous evidence.

We outline here a series of frameworks which offer a way forward, building on examples of successful practice.We hope that the report will stimulate serious discussion among the diverse groups of people and organisations, within and outside Africa, with the capacity to effect change.We commend these frameworks to the bodies we represent and to the broader community of people and institutions – African and UK researchers,vice-chancellors,and research and university associations,and to UK,African and international research funding communities – committed to revitalising African universities and to strengthening humanities and social sciences research on the continent.

Our heartfelt thanks are due to a number of individuals and institutions who have contributed to the organisation of the Nairobi meeting and the production of this report: Abdallah Uma Adamu, Graham Furniss, Andrew Kaniki, Kenneth King, John Kirkland and Paschal Mihyo, who chaired the sessions at the conference, and steered the participants through a complex and wide-ranging discussion; Justin Willis, Susan Mwangi and colleagues at the British Institute in Eastern Africa; Gemma Haxby and the staff at the Royal African Society; Jane Lyddon and Rachel Paniagua at the International Relations Department of the British Academy; and particularly Jonathan Harle, the author of this report, and who conducted our initial consultation, at the Association of Commonwealth Universities. Our warmest thanks are to Graham Furniss, Chair of the Report Steering Committee and Vice-Chair of the British Academy’s Africa Panel, who initiated the whole concept of the study, the consultation and the conference, and who led it to this successful conclusion.

Professor Duncan Gallie
Foreign Secretary and Vice-President of the British Academy

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