Imperial College London has become the first UK university to open a permanent base for science and technology research in Africa.
The world-leading university said that the Imperial Global Ghana hub, based in Accra, will strengthen collaboration on research, technology, education and entrepreneurship between West Africa and the UK.
Research at the hub will focus on medical diagnostics, vaccine research, AI and data science, climate science and sustainable cities, building on Imperial’s existing partnerships in the region.
A small number of staff will initially be based at the centre, which will host PhD students and research fellows working on joint projects.
Majid Ezzati, the first academic director of Imperial Global Ghana, told Times Higher Education that there was an opportunity to use the links to bolster economic development and research in the region, and establish a “long-term equitable partnership” between researchers in the UK and West Africa.
“This is a continent where some of the countries have been independent shorter than I have been alive,” he said. This context, coupled with a young population, meant “there is huge momentum, if the circumstances are right, for a university in science and technology, and we believe that we should be a part of and that will be part of accelerating Africa’s progress”.
Professor Ezzati added there were countries in Latin America and East Asia with “world-class” institutions, “and there is no reason why there cannot be institutions like that within Africa”.
African universities have long had to battle a brain drain of emerging researchers, and Professor Ezzati said he hoped the hub would help develop an ecosystem that means researchers feel “they’re not taking a hit to their career” by remaining in the continent.
UK universities have been attempting to make partnerships with African institutions more equitable in recent years, in a bid to rebalance the power in the generation of scientific knowledge as African institutions face greater battles for funding.
The hub becomes the latest opened by Imperial, after it set up centres in San Francisco and Singapore earlier this year. It also follows moves from UK universities to open branch campuses in the region, including the University of Coventry and Lancaster University.
It was also launched alongside various fellowship programmes in AI and mathematics, and a new network in urban health and climate resilience.
Chi Onwurah MP, chair of the UK Parliament’s Science, Innovation and Technology Select Committee, said that the hub had the potential to “boost deep tech and scientific research and drive the benefits of new discoveries and commercialisation opportunities in West Africa”.
