The dominant global discourse in higher education now focuses on world-class universities inevitably located predominantly in North America, Europe and, increasingly, East Asia. The rest of the world, including Africa, is left to play catch-up. But that discourse should focus rather on the tensions, even contradictions, between excellence and engagement with which all universities must grapple. Here the African experience has much to offer the high-participation and generously resourced systems of the so-called developed world. This book offers a critical review of that experience, and so makes a major contribution to our understanding of higher education.

This volume brings together excellent scholarship and innovative policy discussion to demonstrate the essential role of higher education in the development of Africa and of the world at large. Based on deep knowledge of the university system in several African countries, this book will reshape the debate on development in the global information economy for years to come. It should be mandatory reading for academics, policy-makers and concerned citizens, in Africa and elsewhere." - Manuel Castells, Professor Emeritus, University of California at Berkeley, Laureate of the Holberg Prize 2012 and of the Balzan Prize 2013.

From the early 2000s, a new discourse emerged, in Africa and the international donor community, that higher education was important for development in Africa. Within this ‘zeitgeist’ of converging interests, a range of agencies agreed that a different, collaborative approach to linking higher education to development was necessary. This led to the establishment of the Higher Education Research and Advocacy Network in Africa (Herana) to concentrate on research and advocacy about the possible role and contribution of universities to development in Africa. This book is the final publication to emerge from the Herana project. The project has also published more than 100 articles, chapters, reports, manuals and datasets, and many presentations have been delivered to share insights gained from the work done by Herana. Given its prolific dissemination, it seems reasonable to ask whether this fourth and final publication will offer the reader anything new. This book is certainly different from previous publications in several respects. First, it is the only book to include an analysis of eight African universities based on the full 15 years of empirical data collected by the project. Second, previous books and reports were published mid-project. This book has benefited from an extended gestation period allowing the authors and contributors to reflect on the project without the distractions associated with managing and participating in a large-scale project. For the first time, some of those who have been involved in Herana since its inception have had the opportunity to at least make an attempt to see part of the wood for the trees. Different does not necessarily mean new. An emphasis on the ‘newness’ of the data and perspectives presented in this book is important because it shows that it is more than a historical record of a donor-funded project. Rather, each chapter in this book brings, to a lesser or greater extent, something new to our understanding of universities, research and development in Africa.

Castells in Africa: Universities and Development collects the papers produced by Manuel Castells on his visits to South Africa, and publishes them in a single volume for the first time. The book also publishes a series of empirically-based papers which together display the multi-faceted and far-sighted scope of his theoretical framework, and its fecundity for fine-grained, detailed empirical investigations on universities and development in Africa. Castells, in his afterword to this book, always looking forward, assesses the role of the university in the wake of the upheavals to the global economic order. He decides the university’s function not only remains, but is more important than ever. This book will serve as an introduction to the relevance of his work for higher education in Africa for postgraduate students, reflective practitioners and researchers. Includes two previously unpublished public lectures and an Afterword by Manuel Castells.

Higher education has recently been recognized as a key driver for societal growth in the Global South and capacity building of African universities is now widely included in donor policies. The question is; how do capacity building projects affect African universities, researchers and students? Universities and their scientific knowledges are often seen to have universal qualities; therefore, capacity building may appear straight forward. Higher Education and Capacity Building in Africa contests such universalistic notions. Inspired by ideas about the ‘geography of scientific knowledge’ it explores what role specific places and relationships have in knowledge production, and analyses how cultural experiences are included and excluded in teaching and research. Thus, the different chapters show how what constitutes legitimate scientific knowledge is negotiated and contested. In doing so, the chapters draw on discussions about the hegemony of Western thought in education and knowledge production. The authors’ own experiences with higher education capacity building and knowledge production are discussed and used to contribute to the reflexive turn and rise of auto-ethnography. This book is a valuable resource for researchers and postgraduate students in education, development studies, African studies and human geography, as well as anthropology and history.

This book shows the importance of knowledge production using requisite terms and frameworks to the broader scheme of epistemic liberation in Africa. The text considers what this veritable direction to knowledge production would mean to other areas of concern in African philosophy such as morality, education and the environment. These contributions are important because the success of decolonising projects in African countries depend upon the methods that underpin envisioned liberative knowledge production in light of Africa’s historical and present condition. This volume appeals to students and researchers working in epistemology and African philosophy.

Although academic freedom in teaching and learning methods is crucial to a nation’s growth, the concept comes with numerous misnomers and is subjected to much academic debate and doubt. This volume maps out how truth and intellectual integrity remain the fundamental principle on which the foundation of a university should be laid.

Since the 1990s, internationalisation has become key for institutions wishing to secure funding for higher education and research. For the academic community, this strategic shift has had many consequences. Priorities have changed and been influenced by new ways of thinking about universities, and of measuring their impact in relation to each other and to their social goals. Debates are ongoing and hotly contested. In this collection, a mix of renowned academics and newer voices reflect on some of the realities of international research partnerships. They both question and highlight the agency of academics, donors and research institutions in the geopolitics of knowledge and power. The contributors offer fresh insights on institutional transformation, the setting of research agendas, and access to research funding, while highlighting the dilemmas researchers face when their institutions are vulnerable to state and donor influence. Offering a range of perspectives on why academics should collaborate and what for, this book will be useful to anyone interested in how scholars are adapting to the realities of international networking and how research institutions are finding innovative ways to make NorthSouth partnerships and collaborations increasingly fair, sustainable and mutually beneficial.

This book—prepared by Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI), which is led by IFPRI—offers a comprehensive perspective on the evolution, current status, and future goals of agricultural research and development in Africa, including analyses of the complex underlying issues and challenges involved, as well as insights into how they might be overcome. Agriculture in Africa south of the Sahara is at a prospective tipping point. Growth has accelerated in the past decade, but is unsustainable given increasing use of finite resources. The yield gap in African agriculture is significant, and scenarios on feeding the world’s population into the future highlight the need for Africa to expand its agricultural production. Agricultural Research in Africa: Investing in Future Harvests discusses the need to shift to a growth path based on increased productivity—as in the rest of the developing world— which is essential if Africa is to increase rural incomes and compete in both domestic and international markets. Such a shift ultimately requires building on evolving improvements that collectively translate to deepening rural innovation capacity.

Castells in Africa: Universities and Development collects the papers produced by Manuel Castells on his visits to South Africa, and publishes them in a single volume for the first time. The book also publishes a series of empirically-based papers which together display the multi-faceted and far-sighted scope of his theoretical framework, and its fecundity for fine-grained, detailed empirical investigations on universities and development in Africa. Castells, in his afterword to this book, always looking forward, assesses the role of the university in the wake of the upheavals to the global economic order. He decides the universitys function not only remains, but is more important than ever. This book will serve as an introduction to the relevance of his work for higher education in Africa for postgraduate students, reflective practitioners and researchers. Includes two previously unpublished public lectures and an Afterword by Manuel Castells.