RESEARCH UNIVERSITIES IN AFRICA

299pp., paperback, Cape Town, 2018.

Final publication to emerge from the Higher Education Research and Advocacy Network in Africa (Herana project) that examined the role and contribution of universities to development in Africa. Includes an analysis of eight African universities, including the University of Botswana and the University of Cape Town.

“This is an important book, synthesising 15 years of carefully gathered data and analysis, digging deep into the institutional lives of some of Africa’s best-known universities, and asking challenging questions about what it means to produce knowledge for society and whether these universities are really being enabled to do so. It offers a substantive guide to university leaders and planners, and by connecting empirical evidence to an examination of incentives, funding systems and policy prescriptions, it highlights the competing and contradictory pressures that many institutions and their staff face – and which must be urgently resolved if the potential of African higher education – for the world, not just the continent – is to be realised.” Jonathan Harle, Director of Programmes, INASP, Oxford