Policy Research Brief

Kigali Innovation City, Rwanda

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Executive Brief

• The emerging dynamics of Africa’s higher education and research sector are diverse, complex and globally significant
• Australia’s engagement with Africa in the higher education and research sector needs a rapid and large boost
• Substantial mutual benefits can be generated for both continents through a targeted strategy that places higher education and research as a key pillar of engagement

The emerging dynamics of Africa’s higher education and research sector are of expanding global significance and are characterised by diversity and complexity across the continent’s systems and cultures, substantial and rapidly growing demand for higher education, opportunities for impactful collaboration in innovative and comparative research, and opening to international partnerships under conditions of respect, equality and mutual benefit.

A range of international partners, including from established and emerging powers, have been deeply involved in Africa’s higher education sector. Yet Australia’s interactions with Africa have been more limited in the face of the country’s primary focus over recent decades on the Asia-Pacific.

In a rapidly changing global environment in which both geopolitical and higher education sector relationships are being recast, Australia should position higher education and research sector engagement as a central pillar of a new national strategy for Australia-Africa relations. Key opportunities for mutual benefit can be realised but doing so requires a strategic and sustained enhancement of Australia’s knowledge and policy infrastructure.

World population region growth projection, 1950-2100 (Pew Research Centre, 2019)

Australia won’t know until the 2050s if African higher education is doing what Asia did in the mid-1990s, but it sure feels that way. Executives in established regions say the same things of Africa today as their predecessors did of Asia in the 1990s: ‘hard to get visas’, ‘no money’, ‘infrastructure grumbles’, ‘integrity issues’, ‘limited flights’, ‘scary’… Impressions or realities? Is Australia yet to realise Africa’s potential? Africans themselves think so, and just like their Asian counterparts are finding smart ways to leap ahead.

African universities offer a wealth of untapped potential, specialised expertise, and strategic advantages that can significantly enrich the Australian higher education and research sectors. As Australia looks to diversify its international partnerships, African institutions provide more than just student recruitment opportunities. They offer unique research environments and a diversified exchange of knowledge.

Well-rehearsed tactics can be implemented to activate the above options. Generating dialogue—the purpose of this policy research brief—is an excellent first step, and precursor to building communities which can progress agendas. These communities, which are likely audiences for this briefing, include higher education institutions and stakeholders, business, the African diaspora, and established networks, programs, and centres of excellence.

Such momentum, which Australia can be excellent in producing, can accelerate next-stage liaison through conferences, research, and academic exchanges. Such ventures then move into more substantial study tours, academic programs, institutional partnerships, built campuses, professional connections, and professional graduates. Kind of a dating game. Time for Australia to make the next step.

To be sure, these are not the comfort zones of risk-averse managers. But they are the essence of higher education. And Africa is not the huge risk it once may have been perceived as, especially relative to many other parts of the world.  

Hamish Coates, David Mickler, Christopher Isike

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