African Research Universities Alliance

The African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA) is an alliance of 16 research universities in Africa. Founded in March 2015 in Dakar, Senegal, ARUA seeks to enhance research and graduate training among its member universities through various avenues, including the establishment of Centers of Excellence (CoEs) across member institutions. The UK Government has provided significant funding to support the establishment of the ARUA CoEs.

ARUA's focus is on working together, and the alliance brings together peer African universities that are willing to collaborate by pooling their limited resources to generate a critical mass that can more effectively support their limited but growing numbers of researchers. ARUA's efforts are, therefore, centred on four main thrusts: 1) collaborative research, 2) training and support for doctoral students, 3) capacity building for research management, and 4) research advocacy.

History

The alliance was launched in Dakar, Senegal by fifteen universities in March 2015. These universities included the Universities of Lagos, Ibadan and Obafemi Awolowo in Nigeria, the University of Ghana, Makerere University in Uganda, the University of Nairobi in Kenya, the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, the National University of Rwanda, Université Cheikh Anta Diop in Senegal, and in South Africa the Universities of the Witwatersrand, Cape Town, Stellenbosch, Pretoria, KwaZulu-Natal and Rhodes. Five of these universities had participated in the Higher Education Research and Advocacy Network in Africa (HERANA) project and thus found commonalities that formed the basis for forming the ARUA network. The Carnegie Corporation of New York was instrumental in funding the initiative.

Governance

The governance of ARUA is led by a Board which comprises the Vice Chancellors of all member universities. The functions of the Board and its authority are derived from the Alliance's constitution. The Board has a chair and a co-chair who are elected every three years. The Board is assisted in its work by the executive committee, which is a subset of the Board. The management of the Alliance is done through its Secretary-General.

The ARUA Board is currently chaired by Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe and Prof. Sizwe Mabizela. The Secretariat is headed by Prof. Ernest Aryeetey, who has been Secretary-General since August 2016.

Membership

ARUA's membership remains strictly by invitation from its Board. As of December 2022, the Alliance has 15 members universities and one (1) associate member. The membership is as follows:

Institution	Country
Addis Ababa University	Ethiopia
University of Lagos	Nigeria
University of Ibadan	Nigeria
University of Ghana	Ghana
University of Dar es Salaam	Tanzania
University of Nairobi	Kenya
Université Cheikh Anta Diop	Senegal
Makerere University	Uganda
University of Rwanda	Rwanda
University of Witwatersrand	South Africa
University of Pretoria	South Africa
Stellenbosch University	South Africa
Rhodes University	South Africa
University of Cape Town	South Africa
University of KwaZulu-Natal	South Africa
University of Mauritius (Associate Member)	Mauritius

Partnerships and Collabortions

Since its inception, ARUA has fostered a growing number of partnerships and collaborations with funding institutions such as the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Research Foundation, the UK Research and Innovation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, The Kresge Foundation, and Clarivate Analytics. The Alliance has signed MoUs with the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU), the University of Glasgow, The Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities (The Guild) and the Universitas 21 (U21).