Africa’s science diplomacy push turns to universities

Africa’s attempt to shape its own science diplomacy agenda is raising a harder question for the continent’s universities: are they equipped to turn their knowledge, people and international networks into diplomatic influence?

“We need African scholars on science diplomacy,” Daan du Toit, the deputy director-general for international cooperation and resources in South Africa’s Department of Science, Technology and Innovation (DSTI), told a high-level dialogue at Stellenbosch University (SU) in South Africa recently.

The call takes further an argument he made in a recent University World News interview about the need for Africa to shape its own science diplomacy agenda. In that article he said that, while science diplomacy had developed into a growing academic field, “most of that is not happening in Africa”.

At the SU event, he challenged African universities to become centres of excellence in the “science of science diplomacy” itself – producing the next generation of knowledge workers while also scrutinising those already practising it.

“No one is really commenting on South Africa’s science diplomacy efforts, holding us to account,” he said.

The dialogue, titled, ‘The Future of Science Diplomacy: African Perspectives in a Changing Global Order’, was convened by SU’s Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology (CREST) in partnership with the African STI Leaders’ Forum (ASTIL).

The calibre of participants gave the discussion particular weight: in the room were serving and former vice-chancellors, senior government officials and leaders of major African and international science organisations.

CREST Director Dr Heide Hackmann said continuing to see science diplomacy as an inherently virtuous “force for good” is perhaps a bit naïve. It should rather be viewed as a series of “sometimes very contested choices” involving different interests.

For Africa, she said, the task was to examine those choices from the continent’s own perspective – and then to take action.

From knowledge to agency

In the keynote address, Sir Peter Gluckman, president of the International Science Council (ISC), identified one reason why turning that ambition into action might be difficult.

Scientists, diplomats, multilateral officials and the private sector operate according to different cultures and incentives. Science diplomats have to work across the boundaries between them, yet there are “a really small number of people” with the training and wisdom to do so effectively.

That helps define what universities need to do.

Professor Aldo Stroebel, the deputy vice-chancellor for research, innovation and internationalisation at the University of Mpumalanga (UMP) in South Africa, estimated that about 90% of global knowledge is generated by universities. Yet, even leading academics could know remarkably little about the international science system, the institutions through which it operates or how scientific expertise acquires international influence.

But he resisted framing the answer simply as another African capacity deficit. He was “very critical” of continually saying that, “Africa is behind, we do not contribute, we do not invest”. Some of those weaknesses are real, he acknowledged, but African institutions also need confidence in what they bring to international relationships.

Professor Alinah Segobye, the board chair of the Science for Africa (SFA) Foundation, argued that individual countries were weaker at negotiating tables than when they acted with the “power of one”. But getting there required breaking silos – between mindsets, leadership structures and even geography.

Professor Lise Korsten, immediate past president of the African Academy of Sciences, said that, rather than expecting 55 countries to be identical, Africa should map and combine their strengths and move from reacting to priorities set elsewhere towards defining priorities themselves.

Dr Jackie Kado of the Network of African Science Academies argued that such continental coordination did not require sameness. She called, instead, for greater coherence in the vision articulated by scientists, diplomats and institutions – unity around the end goal while allowing different ways of getting there.

Diplomatic infrastructure

What, then, is distinctive about universities?

Professor Thandi Mgwebi, the vice-chancellor of Walter Sisulu University (WSU) in South Africa, argued that universities occupy a unique space. Governments deal principally in interests and international organisations in mandates, while universities create people-to-people relationships that can last beyond political terms.

“We really are diplomatic infrastructure,” she said.

But her assessment of universities’ readiness was less complimentary: “I don’t think most universities are sufficiently equipped.

“We need diplomatic literacy among academics, because researchers need to understand that engaging internationally involves much more than, ‘We’re going to publish this paper together.’ There’s the geopolitical context, intellectual property, research security, ethics, and so on.”

Professor Daya Reddy of the University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa approached the question from the values and assets universities already possess.

As centres of scholarship, they generate and transmit knowledge and educate successive generations. But academic and scientific freedom, freedom of expression and association, relationships of trust and extensive scholarly networks were also relevant to effective science diplomacy.

Universities’ growing experience of transdisciplinary research was another asset, Reddy argued, because it required researchers to work across sectors and engage actors beyond science – much as science diplomacy, itself, does.

University of Pretoria (UP), South Africa, Vice-Chancellor Professor Francis Petersen put the challenge more strategically: how could African universities convert “their knowledge, their networks, their people and their partnerships into strategic assets for the continent”?

Doing so would require training.

Scientists did not need to become diplomats, nor diplomats scientists, he said. But university staff needed sufficient understanding of the environments in which they were operating, and some training in science diplomacy would increasingly be necessary.

Train the boundary-crossers

Curtis Matiti, a PhD candidate in political studies from the University of the Western Cape (UWC) in South Africa, suggested starting even earlier.

Universities could run science diplomacy simulation exercises bringing together students from various science disciplines, international relations and political studies to tackle real-world problems such as AI governance and climate change – building confidence and expertise before students graduated.

SU Rector and Vice-Chancellor Professor Deresh Ramjugernath supported the idea, arguing for greater experiential learning and a narrower gap between disciplinary knowledge and the skills, competencies and attributes graduates required in practice.

The Science for Africa Foundation’s Dr Judith Omumbo took the training argument further, calling for a “pipeline of scientist-diplomats”.

Her preferred model was not classroom teaching alone, but something closer to an apprenticeship – placing emerging practitioners in the environments where decisions were actually made so that they learned the political and institutional contexts in which science diplomacy is practised.

Gluckman cautioned that the academic study of science diplomacy was too detached from its practice internationally. Universities providing training in the field should bring in practitioners to ground it in real-world experience, he said.

Rhodes University, South Africa’s, Vice-Chancellor Professor Sizwe Mabizela, moderating in his capacity as the board chair of the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA), captured the challenge neatly: it should not become “theoretical intellectual theatre”; scholarship had to be infused with first-hand experience.

Connect the system

Universities are only one part of the science diplomacy ecosystem.

Dr Sepo Hachigonta of South Africa’s National Research Foundation (NRF) described research funders as occupying a particularly useful position between government and universities.

“We are in the middle,” he said – responding to government, supporting universities and researchers, and helping scientific activity feed into relationships between governments.

The challenge is, therefore, partly to connect capabilities that already exist rather than continually invent new structures.

Professor Brando Okolo of the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD) added an economic dimension that can be easily lost in discussions of science diplomacy.

African research addressing African problems also needed routes to users and markets, he argued, urging researchers to “think commercial”. He went as far as describing the science diplomat as an entrepreneur, brokering scientific relationships while asking: “How do I sell Africa’s scientific output to Africans and to the rest of the world?”

That brings the argument back to what science diplomacy is ultimately meant to achieve.

Dr Nelson Torto of the Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education (STINT) said the “social contract” remained the most important consideration.

“Let’s do things that are going to improve the lives of people,” he said. “Let’s bring the universities closer to people.”

And universities, themselves, needed to ask why governments did not always appreciate the science they produced – and what responsibility universities bore for that disconnect.

More than just a seat at the table

The earlier University World News interview with Du Toit established the ambition: Africa should help define science diplomacy rather than merely receive agendas and expertise developed elsewhere.

The Stellenbosch discussion exposed what that ambition demands in practice – confident universities that understand their own assets, scholars who can cross disciplinary and institutional boundaries, training rooted in practice, funders that connect science with government, stronger continental coherence and research that demonstrates social and economic value.

An African-owned science diplomacy agenda, in other words, will need more than an African seat at the table. It will need the institutions and people capable of making that seat count.

Dr Ndumiso Cingo, the strategic partnerships manager at South Africa’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the chair of the Science Diplomacy Capital for Africa (SDCfA) Steering Committee, urged participants and others interested in the field to register for the inaugural Africa Science Diplomacy Conference.

Themed “Science diplomacy with, for and by Africa”, the event will take place at the CSIR International Convention Centre in Pretoria, South Africa, from 30 November to 1 December 2026.