Welcome back to The Co-Lab Brief. If you missed Volume 5 on university partnerships, you can read and respond to the edition here.
The Co-Lab Brief is intended to be a dialogue, which means we want to hear from you on what you think about the topics we’re exploring. You can also share trends, insights and other experiences that will be featured in upcoming editions by visiting our site.
For this edition, we are exploring the following question:
How can African universities move from adapting global models to authoring futures grounded in African voices, values, and visions?
In this issue, we share the Designing Future Ready Universities: Sub-Saharan Africa report, which examines a defining moment for higher education on the continent, one shaped by urgency, possibility, and collective responsibility. As an African proverb reminds us, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” This report is an invitation to go far, through dialogue, co-design, and collective action.
Globally, universities are under increasing pressure to become more resilient, relevant, and responsive to the societies they serve. Nowhere is this call more acute (nor more alive with possibility) than across Africa. The continent’s youthful energy, digital ingenuity, and cultural vibrancy coexist with profound challenges: expanding access, widening inequality, workforce uncertainty, and growing expectations that young people will shoulder responsibility for addressing some of the world’s most complex problems.
Through our discussions with dozens of leaders, experts and policymakers, a call to action has arisen: African universities must evolve from being universities in Africa to African universities shaping the world. Incremental change will not suffice. What is required is a reimagining of an entire sector to drive systems-level transformation rooted in local values and histories, globally connected and sustained through shared ownership.
