The blog has undergone changes, including new connectivity to social media platforms and a funding database. We re-start with a review of a study on research universities in Africa and welcome further guest authors to contribute to a variety of issues and formats.
Review: Research Universities in Africa
Akiiki Babyesiza reviews the recent publication ‘Research Universities in Africa’ that argues that universities should not be instrumental for development but the core engines of development. The book offers a comparative study of eight African universities, their features and contexts.
News, Calls and other Links #3/2019
Our third issue of news and links with grant offers from UKRI, EDCTP, and TWAS; a call for conference papers on the subject of knowledge production in North-South collaboration; and among other challenging reads about the African publication landscape, the commercialization of higher education and South Africa resisting World Bank’s policy advise.
News, Calls and other Links #2/2019
A new issue of News and Links with calls from DAAD and UKRI, a scientometric conference call and reads about scientific ethics, returning researchers, and good practice tools to improve direct funding to African scientists.
Taxation and the funding of science
Big corporation’s licit and illicit tax evasion behavior prevents African governments and citizens from building up the resources needed to invest in public goods in their countries. This also affects the scientific and higher education sector. Lack of funds for R&D should hence not only be analyzed in the light of government commitments but also in the light of the prevailing international political economy.
News, Calls and other Links #1/2019
2019′ first edition of News and Links looks at British and TWAS research funding opportunities, at calls for conferences in philosophy and STS, and gives some links to articles about career paths of African scientists and the new journal Scientific African.
Elizabeth Rasekoala on science and ownership
This interview with Dr. Elizabeth Rasekoala was conducted during the SciCOM 100 Conference in 2018, ‘Science Communication and Democratic South Africa: Prospects and Challenges’ (5-7 November) at Stellenbosch University. As the team of sureco-review, we were interested to learn more about African Gong and the Co-Founder and President, Dr. Rasekoala. African Gong is the Pan-African Network for the Popularization of Science & Technology and Science Communication.
Science diplomacy – a catch-all concept in public policy?
Science diplomacy has attracted a lot of attention during the last decade. A great many of other intermediary organizations have adopted the term to rebrand their activities, programs, and agendas. Nicolas Rüffin argues that we are dealing with a moving target when studying science diplomacy.
News, Calls and other Links #5/2018
A new issue of call for applications, conferences, and interesting reads, including new books on young African researchers and HED in Africa.
A Seminar on Research Integrity
During the summer semester I had the opportunity to teach a course on research integrity and international scientific collaborations with my colleague Tim Flink from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. The course was part of a Master-program in science studies and turned out to be very interesting with a lot of input, critique and ideas from the […]