How the Africa Oxford Initiative is Supporting African Research and Innovation Ecosystems Through Equitable and Extensive Collaborations with Dr Anne Makena

[00:00:00] You're listening to the Unlocking Africa podcast. My journey began from a scientific curiosity. I started out as a grassroots community mobiliser before I knew what these words actually meant. So the way Afox seeks to do this is providing access to global resources and networks,

[00:00:17] but also opportunities for cross-pollination of ideas between African researchers and with African researchers and across the UK. The way I think about investing in individuals is that the cost of not doing it is too staggering to even imagine. And this is not unique.

[00:00:33] This is what any even developed countries actually are having to do. It's not unique to Africa. Stay tuned as we bring you inspiring people who are unlocking Africa's economic potential. You're listening to the Unlocking Africa podcast with your host, Terser Adamu. Welcome to the Unlocking Africa podcast

[00:00:57] where we find inspirational people who are doing inspirational things to unlock Africa's economic potential. Today, we have Anne McKenna, who is co-director of the Africa Oxford Initiative, also known as Afox, which is a cross university platform for collaborations between the University of Oxford and African researchers and institutions.

[00:01:24] Welcome, welcome, welcome to the podcast, Anne. How are you? I'm well, Terser. Thank you for having me. It's a delight to be here. Oh, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast and I'm looking forward to our conversation. Before we get started,

[00:01:37] I was hoping you could introduce yourself and tell us a bit more about Anne McKenna. Okay, so I am McKenna. My name actually means joy. So the one who brings joy. So I try to do that. That's pretty much my identity. But I'm a scientist by training.

[00:01:56] I'm a little village girl from a little town called Isiolo near the north of Kenya. I'm a wife, I'm a mother of two and my journey began from curiosity really. My journey began from a scientific curiosity. I started out sort of as a grassroots community mobilizer

[00:02:15] before I knew what these words actually meant. Working on NGOs and health interventions in Northern Kenya. So I guess I've always had the social impact side to me but over the last seven years or so, I started working more deliberately in building social justice movements

[00:02:36] in research and innovation. So I guess I started from a scientific background. I was always a curious child. I enjoyed the sciences. They made sense. They made my world make sense. So I did my undergraduate in more university in Kenya in biochemistry and then came to Oxford

[00:02:54] as a Rhodes scholar to do my PhD or the D field as they call it in Oxford. I did my different chemical biology. I worked on antimicrobial resistance. I loved tinkering with bacteria but then towards the end of my D field

[00:03:09] I became quite an easy with a question of insufficient data in addressing global health challenges in Africa and also the fact that there were very few Africans in places like Oxford where lots of programs and research was being carried out that would have had profound impacts

[00:03:27] across the continent. So that was the genesis of sort of our focus in me and in the last few years we worked with colleagues across the university to set it up and develop it to what it is now. Fantastic. So you've given us quite a comprehensive insight

[00:03:43] into your personal life, professional life and the journey into what you're doing now and the mission of AFRIC. So in general, what do you believe needs to happen to bridge that gap to enable collaboration between African and non-African researchers and institutions?

[00:04:03] Well, I think generally it starts with recognizing why there is a gap in the first place, understanding that there is a gap and then recognizing and being honest about why there is a gap. The talent is ubiquitous, that knowledge, innovation skills, these things are everywhere in the world

[00:04:22] but we've got a globally an ecosystem where resources are allocated and concentrated in some parts of the world and not in others but also understanding that we have shared problems, they're global challenges now that solving problems in the continent actually solves the problems for the world.

[00:04:39] So while we acknowledge and recognize that there is a gap in terms of resources and access to technologies, it's also understanding and appreciating that African academics and researchers and innovators have been at the forefront of cutting edge discoveries for centuries.

[00:04:57] So this is not new and there's always opportunities for cross learning between cultures, between institutions, between individuals, between societies. So I've had the great pleasure of working with distinguished African researchers who have interesting ways of thinking and approaches towards social challenges that it's really phenomenal

[00:05:14] and anybody in the world could benefit from it. So at the core of our focus is not this global good citizenship argument, I mean, which is good but there's nothing wrong with being a good global citizen. It's really thinking about the future of the world

[00:05:28] and that the future of the world is intricately linked to the future of the continent. So we believe that one of the ways to bridge this gap is recognizing that there has been inequalities in relationships between non-African institutions and African colleagues, but also recognizing that there's incredible resources,

[00:05:47] knowledge, expertise in the continent that can really drive social change across the world. And by bridging that, then we're doing good not just for ourselves, but also for the entire world. That's why I don't speak of capacity building or capacity strengthening, I speak of capacity sharing.

[00:06:04] And I think it would be great if we could popularize the term capacity sharing, because everybody has something to offer in addressing the challenges that we all face as a world. Fantastic. So you've touched on a few key points there in terms of understanding and recognizing

[00:06:19] why there is a gap and the fact that we are a global community and our problems are shared problems. So from the work that you've done so far, what are some of the most obvious or tangible benefits that you've seen from this type of collaboration?

[00:06:36] I mean, a lot of it is really at a personal level is seeing people's dreams come true, like visions that people had for themselves as researchers, as innovators, as students come through. And that's really rewarding, right? Just as an individual having a plan to develop a solution

[00:06:55] and being linked up with people who are thinking in a similar way and really keen to support each other in building those solutions and seeing that come to fruition in and of itself is a win, right? Without necessarily thinking about the lives transformed

[00:07:10] and all of that, even at that individual level, it's fantastic. I think we've also seen unlocking of new ideas that we couldn't have possibly have had if we didn't have African colleagues involved in that conversation. So an example we often give

[00:07:24] is a colleague who worked in epilepsy research for many years within the NHS, within the UK health systems and partnered through the AFOX network, partnered with a colleague in Zimbabwe and they were able to start a new global epilepsy research movement

[00:07:39] that was then funded by various high level funders. And now there's a huge interest around epilepsy management and the work that was being done by colleagues in Zimbabwe is now being translated to other parts of the world, including in India and in South America.

[00:07:57] So it's just really wonderful to see what can happen when individuals' ideas and interventions are supported to thrive beyond their immediate localities, including both in Oxford, but also in the continent. And I think the thing that I find most impressive is the other ancillary benefits, right?

[00:08:16] That the cultural interchange, the knowing of the other, the concern for somebody from a completely different culture, different part of the world and that integration that comes from the process of building trust across communities. And it's really important in the very polarized world

[00:08:34] that we live in at the moment, it's really important to not underestimate the value of difference, the value of people from different backgrounds, having conversations, having shared values and being supported in making those a reality. Fantastic, thank you for that.

[00:08:48] And so I guess if we take a few steps back from the benefits or the outcome and look at how this partnership or project works, what are the mechanisms behind AFOX in terms of how do you facilitate the collaborations between the University of Oxford

[00:09:07] and African researchers and institutions? So the way AFOX went about its business is that we co-developed our programs. In fact, we often joke that we didn't have a strategy when we started, right? We didn't want a program to be developed from Oxford

[00:09:24] and then passed on to people from the continent. So it was a co-development of what is it that would work, what is helpful. And through this conversational process, we developed three core killers. And one of them is education. Education is really about human capital development,

[00:09:41] recognizing that African talent is important for finding solutions for the various global challenges we face and so providing opportunities for African students to engage with Oxford colleagues through scholarships, through mentorship, through support for collaboration between institutions in the continent and Oxford. And so we ran a scholarship program,

[00:10:01] we ran an end-to-end support program from before people arrived to Oxford during their time here and through a bespoke program called the Ubuntu Transitions Program, we support scholars to embed themselves back into organizations in the continent to both plug in the skills gaps there

[00:10:18] but also have some experiential learning of how things actually work beyond the theory. So that's our education pillar. And then we have a research pillar as well. And this really has the mission to embed equity, sustainability and impact in research partnerships. And we do this through various programs

[00:10:39] that are co-applied by Oxford and African colleagues. And these include a research fellowship program and catalyst grant that allows for catalyzation of new research partnerships. And then this cut across all the departments, we have support for everything from musicology

[00:10:56] to climate research and to health research and so forth. So it's really wonderful to see the range of all the incredible research that comes across from these collaborations. And then finally, we have an innovation pillar and this is around translating good research ideas

[00:11:12] into products and services for the African market. And so we work with entrepreneurs and innovators from across the continent. We support them to link up with technical experts as well as business leaders from both Oxford but within our broader network in the UK

[00:11:29] to be able to leverage this expertise and these resources to be able to translate their good ideas into actual products. So that's a range of the programs that we run. But at the core of it really is creating opportunities for cross-pollination of ideas through events,

[00:11:46] through the programs, but also through creating a platform where people can actually come and ask, so what is Oxford doing about malaria in Nigeria? And then someone from Oxford can say, I'm interested in partnering with someone in renewable energy in Sudan. Where do I even start?

[00:12:02] So at the core of it is creating a platform where those conversations can even begin. Brilliant, so you've given us a great overview of the three pillars and programs. But I was hoping we could probably go a bit deeper

[00:12:14] in terms of what are some of the specific challenges that are faced by African researchers and institutions that these pillars are hoping to address. We know the usual sort of challenges, access to funding is tough for researchers in the continent. There's also the big administrative burden

[00:12:35] that academics have to deal with. You have many students that you have to teach in addition to fundraising for your own research, in addition to administrative burdens in universities. Those are sort of the things that we already know that make doing high level research in the continent difficult.

[00:12:53] There are also challenges with attracting good PhD students and giving them opportunities to thrive, so building the next generation of researchers. And for the innovation is really a challenge of getting funding to be able to go beyond the good idea that you develop in your lab

[00:13:10] and to be able to get credibility for the work that you also do in the continent. So I think what our folks seeks to do in the end is one, to acknowledge and to showcase the incredible work that African researchers are already doing despite the limited resources

[00:13:27] and to say, look, there's incredible talent. There's incredible work that's already going on. What we need to do as I say is provide water for the road. People already know where they're going. People already know the problems they are trying

[00:13:39] to solve for and the solutions that would be best for that particular context. So what we do is provide some water for the journey so that the work can be made faster and more efficient. And then the other challenge is often connectivity between researchers.

[00:13:55] So you find that there are real challenges in connecting academics between, so sort of someone is working on a HIV vaccine in Kenya and someone else is doing similarly in South Africa and there's not always an easy way of them to work with each other.

[00:14:10] So in a way part of the AFOX Fellowship Program and so forth is to create those global intra-Africa conversations. You will also find African colleagues in Oxford and Cambridge and others that are working on solutions that are relevant for the continent and just creating opportunities for this intra-Africa

[00:14:30] or as I call it, global Africa collaboration and conversation to help us to sort of move the needle on the issues that we care about because the synergy is really, really important. And finally, there's a real issue between translating good science and good research into products.

[00:14:47] And this is because of the high risks that we associate African innovations with. And this is where the cross-pollination of ideas from the students to the researchers to the innovators is important because the research that we do provides an evidence for the innovations

[00:15:06] that then become products and solutions. So I think it's both about the access to technologies, the access to resources, but also it's access to the people that will be able to drive the pathway from good ideas to actual products and services for our people.

[00:15:26] So the way AFOX seeks to do this is as I say, providing global access to global resources and networks but also opportunities for cross-pollination of ideas between African researchers and with African researchers and across the UK. I think it's clear that you're doing great work,

[00:15:44] as you mentioned, with access to technology, resources and people. I was wondering if you can give us a bit more detail in terms of how do you ensure that once that collaboration is in place that there is like equitable participation and also benefit sharing

[00:16:03] within those collaborative research projects? To be honest, I think a big part of it is the individuals that are involved in the process. You know? Yes. So a big part of it, you know, is knowing as you come to the collaboration table, you are bringing value.

[00:16:19] You know, you are bringing something that the other person doesn't have regardless of who they are or where they come from. That you as an equal collaborator into this relationship, you were bringing something that is valuable. You know, people often, you know,

[00:16:34] in the team we joke about this and say that, everything in Oxford is named Oxford, there is Oxford Center for that, Oxford that and that. And AFOX is deliberately called Africa Oxford. So we have AFOX Africa first in the name

[00:16:48] to center the continent and to symbolize an intention and an obligation as it were to move away from the existing and equal power relations between researchers and academics in Oxford and in the global north more broadly with colleagues in Africa. And so in the same regard,

[00:17:04] our fellowships have to be applied jointly between an Oxford colleague and a colleague based in the continent. Our programs are also co-developed with colleagues in the continent. And we also make sure that whenever we apply for grants, as it were, we create an equal playing field

[00:17:22] because whoever is coming into the collaboration table is not bringing their own grant. So as an Oxford academic, you're not bringing your own grant to the table. It's an AFOX grant. So then African collaborators can also drive their own agenda. So they're no longer at the mercy

[00:17:36] of whoever holds their, holds a pass, if you can say that. They can operate on a neutral ground and therefore we do risk the collaboration process. And the core of this really is creating trust. It's very hard to create trust if you're bringing the money

[00:17:52] and I'm bringing the ideas or you're bringing the ideas and I'm bringing this. So it's hard to create trust unless you know that you have a fallback plan. You're able to bring your ideas to the core, to the front without feeling like you'll be penalized for it

[00:18:07] or this is the only chance you've got at career development. So I think a good part of this is us having conversations as African researchers and saying, we bring value to the table. And then as founders of research, de-risking that process, that collaboration process by creating neutral grounds

[00:18:24] so people can be able to have genuine conversations because everybody wins when everybody brings their best. And that's how we try to approach it. And we also work with other partners. There are other programs in the UK that are looking to build this equity in collaborations

[00:18:41] and so we work with them to learn best practices from each other. And we listen to our grantees and we listen to our fellows because at the end of the day, they know what works best. We are just facilitators as it were. So are there any specific examples

[00:18:57] of say successful research projects that you're proud of that have been facilitated by AFOX? Well, I mean, I have to say like a good one. I have no favorites. Oh, we've funded over, I think 300 and 300 plus, you know, research collaborations. So I have no favorites

[00:19:20] but there's been incredible impacts looking at the work that people have done. I mean, one example I can give is for instance, Dr. Siyana Nkia from Mwimbele University of Health and Allied Sciences in Tanzania and the University of Daneisulam in Tanzania was an AFOX fellow in 2019.

[00:19:38] She worked with our colleague here, Professor Anna Shu at the Oxford Oncology Department on work around childhood blood cancers called leformas. So these are special cancers that they affect the blood of children and over 90% of the children in the world

[00:19:53] with these types of cancers are from sub-Saharan Africa. So the testing for these things, the testing costs around $4,000. And sometimes upward of that if you put in all the transport costs to go to the hospital and, you know, accessibility and so forth. And so through this partnership

[00:20:11] they set up a social enterprise called Seren and this was around building DNA-based technologies that would then reduce the cost of diagnosis to about $10. And to see this work come to fruition, they were very successful. They won their university's Vice Chancellor's Innovation Awards, but more importantly,

[00:20:31] they went on to save hundreds of thousands of lives of young children in Tanzania and hopefully will continue to grow this work to the rest of East Africa. I could speak about, you know, working in renewable energies. I could speak about working, you know,

[00:20:45] social enterprise, work in refugee and forced migration and so forth. So there's a whole range of incredible work that can be done when people with shared interest and complementary skills come together to try and solve the world's challenges. So, I mean, there's plenty of examples to give.

[00:21:03] We have an incredible scholar called Patricia Matiwa on our scholarship program who's working on inclusion of disability in climate, the climate interventions and how we think about people living with disability in any of these negotiations. And so it's really fantastic. If you go to the RFOX website,

[00:21:22] the stories abound of incredible work. And this is what gives me hope, hope for our continent, but also hope for the world. Yes. As you mentioned, you've made incredible impact. Is there a specific way that you measure the impact? Is it a quantitative, qualitative type of way

[00:21:40] or is it a specific framework that you have in terms of how you measure the impact of each project? So, you know, the beauty and the challenge of measuring impact in research is that you don't see the value of these things until like 20, 30 years later, right?

[00:21:57] This is a long-term game. And for investing in individuals, especially at graduate students, you don't see, you see some immediate impact, but you really cannot quantify the actual value of what you put into an individual's growth until much later. And it's the same thing with research.

[00:22:17] So, some of the tools that we use are the usual ones we interview and do focus service for our researchers and our fellows. And we do the same thing with our scholars to get feedback, immediate feedback on our programs. And if they're doing what they hoped

[00:22:32] they would be doing for them. And I mean, a recent review of our catalyst grants program specifically showed that over 70% of them are still sustained three to five years after the initial grant was made. Those collaborations are still alive and well. People have published books together.

[00:22:51] They've leveraged, you know, their partnership to apply for further grants. In fact, I think we saw that some applicants have been able to get up to 30 times in leverage of further research and innovation funding from what we initially invested.

[00:23:07] So it's incredible to see those kinds of immediate impact. But I think the value of this really comes through years later. So I give an example with myself. I'm a product of scholarships. I come from a rural background. I come from a place that, you know,

[00:23:24] there was no viable reason why I would be, you know, doing a PhD in the University of Oxford seeing the background that I came from. But somebody invested in me from primary school. And that person did not know that, you know,

[00:23:37] 30 years later, I will be building a program that is bringing hundreds of thousands of people making their dreams come true. So the person who invested in me then had a long game in mind. And that's what we push, especially in research partnerships and in research findings.

[00:23:53] We invest in people because that's an investment that doesn't rot, you know? And the impact will be felt for years to come, not least to that individual, but also to their societies. I like what you said in terms of you can't put a value on a person's growth.

[00:24:08] With that in mind, what do you think is the significance of developing or investing in enhancing human capital development on the continent? That's a really good question, Tassa. I mean, when we talk about the continent, we use these numbers without a lot of thoughts. You know, 2.5 billion people

[00:24:31] will be living in the continent by 2050. More than a third of the world's young people will live in Africa by 2050. Even at the moment, almost 20% or 30%, I think, of student age population lives in the continent. So we're not doing this just for the continent.

[00:24:47] We're not doing this for Africa, it's for the world really. Yes. And the way I think about investing in individuals is that the cost of not doing it is too staggering to even imagine. The cost of not investing in individual human capital development is too high for us.

[00:25:07] So we cannot afford to not do it. That's how I look at it. That's how I look at it. But having thought about it in that regard, we think about any of the challenges that we are currently experiencing from climate change, from challenges with geopolitical tensions,

[00:25:22] from the technological revolution. If there's anybody, if there's anywhere where we can experiment, try things, develop new innovations very quickly that are not encumbered with traditional systems and so forth, the place is Africa really. So if we're able to leverage the resources

[00:25:41] and the wealth of the young people in the continent, then we are able to actually address global challenges. And I think the last thing I would say there is the young people in the continent are not the minority. They're not sitting around waiting

[00:25:53] for people to invest in them. I think we need to shun this idea of people sitting there waiting for us to feed them. This is definitely not the case. Anybody who lives and works in Africa knows that they're the most entrepreneurial. They're working, they're innovating,

[00:26:09] they're investing in themselves more than we could ever invest in them. So I think, as I said in the beginning, for me, the way I view it is somebody knows where they are going. They are putting together as much effort as possible to get there.

[00:26:23] The role of global partners is to be able to give water for the journey, you know, and facilitate where possible to lower the barriers for people who are working towards investing in themselves. So if we look at this specifically from the perspective of AFACS,

[00:26:40] do you have projects or systems in place to address maybe some of the needs for, I know you don't like the word in terms of capacity development or skill development amongst African researchers and institutions? Capacity sharing is the term I use often. And I use that deliberately

[00:27:00] because you're not starting from scratch. Nobody has nothing to offer, right? People already have a lot to offer. And so I'll give an example with our scholarship program. So with our scholarship program, we select some of the brightest and just exceptional candidates from top universities across the continent

[00:27:20] that have already demonstrated that they are invested in the development of the continent, that they are already working towards, you know, more than themselves building programs for others. They are working towards social impact. And more importantly, they want to leverage their skills, their network and their resources

[00:27:38] to do more of this work. And so we already see them as rising stars. Some of them have done incredible work. I learn more from them, I think that they learn from me most of the time. And so when we take these colors,

[00:27:53] what we think about is what is the systems that we can put in place to ensure that they thrive throughout their careers? So we have a pre Oxford session with them. We talk about what is it, what are their goals? What are they looking to get out

[00:28:06] of the University of Oxford? What networks, what access, what resources are they looking to get during their master's period in Oxford? So we talk through that with the scholars and by the time they're coming to the university, there's a bit of a sense of what is it

[00:28:20] that this opportunity affords them that will go over and above what they already have in their skills portfolio, in their pot as it were. And then throughout the Oxford experience, they have their courses, they are doing engineering, cancer biology, musicology, social sciences, whatever the course,

[00:28:39] they do their work. But alongside that we embed a leadership and impact program. So this is around thinking about leading self because you need to take care of yourself as you do this work. It's around leading communities. It's about understanding global politics, global economic structures,

[00:28:57] is talking to people who are actually doing the things that you hope to be doing with your life. So we embed this program alongside it so that they are able to come out as holistic leaders when they finish their master's program.

[00:29:10] And then towards the end of their master's, we talk about career transitions. And that's where we have the Ubuntu Transitions Program. And here we work with employers, with sort of organizations across the continent that would like to access this incredible talent that comes out of our university.

[00:29:28] And so the scholars are embedded within institutions in the continent. And this has the two way benefit of plugging in specialized skills gaps in the continent, but also allowing us to have the experiential learning because what you learn in classroom flies

[00:29:44] when you actually are sitting across the table with the Minister of Environment talking about green transitions, right? It's a different experience there. Then after that they become a part of this AFOX alumni network that then leverages both from the scholars pool

[00:29:59] to the researchers pool and the innovators pool and that can constantly lead and peer learn from each other. And then they become the supporters for the next cohort of the scholars. So it's a circular sort of process. And so by thinking about the holistic career

[00:30:14] of an individual, you're able to develop programs that think end to end from when you come, you become part of the AFOX family all the way to when you decide to become part of the AFOX grandfather, if I can call it that. Yeah.

[00:30:28] So with the work that you're doing collaborating across continents, I'm assuming that technology is key. So what role is technology and digital innovation playing in advancing research objectives within your network? So there is a programmatic side is what we use digital innovation for.

[00:30:49] And I can speak about our online programs and how we are able to reach scale, what Oxford offers to the world in a way that we couldn't possibly have imagined was possible without digital innovation. But I think also what I see valuable is that process of creating communities.

[00:31:08] So from a programmatic side, we know that we couldn't have been able to deliver programs across various parts of the continent without necessarily having people come to Oxford without digital innovation. So that's really critical. Even as an institution, Oxford really thinks about which place in the world.

[00:31:28] It's great at being the best in the world, but I think now we are being more deliberate about being the best for the world. And that requires a lot of utilization of digital innovation to be able to scale the reach of university education resources

[00:31:41] to a broader range of people across the world. But beyond that, I think what I have seen very powerful and if you allow me, I'll talk for a second on this idea of the global Africa movement. What I've seen really powerful is leveraging the power of technology

[00:31:56] to be able to bring bridge Africans that are across the world in ideas and so forth. So I see this with our mentoring program for our scholars. You find someone on LinkedIn very quickly, they say, I want to do the course you did.

[00:32:10] How do I go about applying? Or I finished the course that you did last year. How do I go about thinking about the job market? And you see these communities starting to form in a way that wasn't possible a few years ago.

[00:32:25] And what I find most valuable is a synergy between Africans in the continent, Africans in the diaspora, Africans across the world really saying we are going to be our own best saviors. Not waiting for ideas to come from elsewhere, leveraging on each other.

[00:32:41] I think that's been the most powerful tool I have seen that we've applied digital innovation in. And I have loved to see how especially the young scholars just know how to work these kinds of things. It's remarkable to watch how much they can achieve

[00:32:57] with digital innovation in a way that I couldn't have imagined when we set up our folks. So if we look at it in more general terms, what role do you see the innovation side playing within the African research community? Will innovation play a bigger part

[00:33:14] in terms of how the African research community operates? That's a good question, Tessa. I think it works both ways. I think they fit into each other. So here is my thesis. If you picture a sort of triangle and you think of a triangle with three parts

[00:33:35] and on the top of it, one of the corners you have research. And I think of research as sort of the frameworks, the skeletons of this body that helps us to hang our ideas on and to give our ideas structure and form

[00:33:50] to help us think about the questions that we are trying to address and the solutions that we want to use to address social challenges. So I think of research as pillars or as skeletons in a body. And then the part where we have communities

[00:34:05] as a second sort of pillar or second corner, as it were, social enterprises, NGOs, government, so forth, these social actors give flesh to those skeletons. They give them form, they make them make sense. So what are you doing this? Who are you doing this for as it were?

[00:34:24] And that's where we have civil societies asking us, are you thinking about us? Are you thinking about equity? Are you thinking about community impacts? Are you thinking about long-term sustainability and so forth? So social actors, governments, NGOs, communities, so forth, give the research skeletons some flesh

[00:34:40] and give it form. And then here next you have innovators, entrepreneurs, businesses. And I think this is the blood, the circulatory system that allows these ideas to flow between people and turn them into actually viable products and services. So innovation feeds into that loop

[00:35:00] as it were to allow us to circulate the ideas from research into communities, back into businesses, back into research, into communities and so forth. And so the way I think about it, is that they're not isolated things on their own, but they feed into each other.

[00:35:14] And when that loop is broken at any one point, that's where you have challenges that we feel like are intractable. When we don't have societies and communities involved in the research and innovation process, then whatever we develop as innovators, as entrepreneurs, even as researchers is irrelevant.

[00:35:31] And if we don't have innovators and entrepreneurs and businesses taking what we develop as researchers and translating it into solution for communities, then what you end up with is hollow research that is blue sky with no particular legs to stand on,

[00:35:45] if I can say that, and lack sustainability. But if innovators go on their own and develop solutions without evidence-based, they actually cause more harm to societies. And we've seen very many examples of this where we run away with our good ideas

[00:35:59] without a strong evidence based on why they work and for whom they work. So this is the image I have in my mind. And that's why it's really important to have all these three flowing between themselves and cross-pollinating ideas across. You've painted a very clear picture

[00:36:14] in terms of the research ecosystem. So I guess within that ecosystem, what do you think is the importance of, well, outside of that ecosystem, what do you think is the importance of research collaboration in terms of driving economic development, specifically in Africa? There are three elements

[00:36:33] that research supports in economic development. One is a very critical role that we underestimate the employment opportunity of researchers. Research provides a huge opportunity for anybody to get involved in the process of solving their own problems. The way of thinking about research

[00:36:51] is not some work that a bunch of PhDs and university people do research, right? No, it's a way of thinking, a way of curiosity, a way of approaching the questions that we grapple with. And that's what research is,

[00:37:05] and at the core of it is a way of questioning and trying to come up with ways of knowing or finding the knowledge we need to have to be able to find solutions for the challenges that we face. At the core of that, that's the research DNA,

[00:37:20] if you can call it that. So at the bottom of it, I think it's an important way of being that helps us to question, to not be comfortable with things as they are and to use the tools that we've got the various research methodologies

[00:37:32] to ask the right questions, find the answers to those questions and then reiterate the process over and over. So it gives us a way of thinking, a way of being as it were. And then the second layer of that is that anybody can get involved in research.

[00:37:46] The barrier to entry is quite low. If you're curious, if you study and get to know how to ask the right questions and are interested in figuring out things, then we really can have a lot more people involved in the research enterprise.

[00:38:01] But I think the thing that makes sense to most people is this question of de-risking investments. So say I wanted to look at huge infrastructure projects in the continent that have failed to work, right? And we want to take those infrastructure programs, those infrastructures,

[00:38:22] structures to be able to turn them into viable, businesses' viable solutions, right? They are important, but we don't know why they failed in the first place, what's not working. How would we be able to go about it? You can attract an investor

[00:38:37] when they just say, you know, we don't know, right? One way of de-risking investment is by having the evidence for showing what works, why it works, when it works, why does it fail? And really saying these are the mitigation strategies we can put in place to avoid risks.

[00:38:56] So another loop I can give you to think about is if we have low investments in research and development, we make, we have less evidence for the decisions that we make, be it policy, be it investments. And therefore we make poorer decisions and then we have poorer outcomes.

[00:39:12] If we are poor outcomes, we end up with, you know, higher risks, profiles, higher risk rating, and then we have less capital to be able to invest in research and innovation. And the loop continues. But imagine if we had sufficient evidence

[00:39:26] for what works in this setting, in our context and why, then we can be able to make more sound decisions and we can be able to get better returns, be it policy returns, social returns, economic returns. Then we can be able to have a lower risk profile.

[00:39:40] We can lower our cost of capital. We can then have more to invest in the research ecosystem. So this is how I think about it. It really is the bedrock of any development endeavor or any economic endeavor for that matter. You touched on a key point there

[00:39:56] in terms of the need or requirements for investments within the research space in Africa. So what role can private capital play in advancing research and development efforts in Africa? That's a really good question, Tassa. And I couldn't emphasize more the role for private capital in research ecosystem.

[00:40:19] So we often think about research as a thing that governments should invest in. And we're always saying, African governments don't invest in research and they should invest more in research. And I agree, yes, African governments committed to spending 1% of their funding, of their GDP in R&D,

[00:40:37] and they should be held accountable for that. But if we look across the world, the sources of investments in R&D, for instance, in the US over the last 20 years or so, the majority of it has been from private funding, right? At the moment in Japan,

[00:40:54] I think we're talking almost 80% of R&D's investment comes from private companies and very little from higher education and nearly nothing from nonprofits. So the way we think about research in the content is a little warped. We're expecting funding from the Gates Foundation, from the Wellcome Trust

[00:41:12] and for the others, international funders to funders. But it really is about private capital, knowing that you will get better returns in the research ecosystem. And that's not, it's not an exaggeration. If you go into any business without knowing what you're going into, you will fail, right? Yes.

[00:41:34] You just definitely fail. So the role of private capital is really critical, both to be able to allow the building of an ecosystem that works for everyone and embed that equity piece in it, but also to be able to leverage this information for business decisions.

[00:41:50] So I think that's the way society works and then we make better policies because we know better and then we make better investments because we know better, you know? So I can't overemphasize the importance of private capital in R&D in the continent. And this is not unique.

[00:42:06] This is what any even developed countries actually are having to do. It's not unique to Africa. So is this something, are you seeing more private capital coming into the African research that is still quite stagnant in terms of the flows coming in?

[00:42:23] Anecdotally, I don't have the evidence for this. I would need to actually look into it and see how much money is coming into the R&D space in the continent from across different sources. But anecdotally, I don't think a lot of companies

[00:42:37] see Africa as a place they do R&D, right? See the place where they come and expand their markets. And that's the painful thing when we talk about the Africa demographic dividend. When we talk about accessing the market, which is just one piece of it, right?

[00:42:52] It's just a really one piece of it. And the unfortunate thing is that a lot of companies spend their R&D budgets in the UK, in the US and so forth, and then use Africa as an experimental space or a market entry space, to let's see, let's experiment

[00:43:10] and see if we can actually deliver our products there. And I think our call is to change that, change that. There is a growing population of Africans that are now researchers. We are growing the research outputs from the continent steadily.

[00:43:25] And so it's time that the private capital world caught up. There's incredible things to be learned from the continent. And to be honest, we all know that whatever products you develop in the US, in Canada, in the UK will not necessarily fit into the African market

[00:43:44] for you to be able to develop viable products for the African market. You have to invest in research and development there to understand the ecosystem, to understand the peculiarities of the continent to be able to have viable businesses there. So unfortunately, I think anecdotally,

[00:44:00] there's not been as much private capital investment in R&D in Africa. I think if we are going to have more companies try to build businesses in the continent, they will have to invest in R&D in the continent and using existing structures.

[00:44:14] We don't have to create new instruments and new organizations and so forth. We've got existing brilliant researchers in the universities in the research organizations. Yes, there are structural challenges to think about but they are not insurmountable. Fantastic. So we've discussed the current African research space

[00:44:35] and some of the opportunities that you've seen. So I guess with those opportunities comes certain trends. Are there any emerging trends that you're seeing in the Africa research space that you're quite excited about? Well, I mean, I couldn't leave this conversation without talking about AI, could I?

[00:44:55] Certainly not. I don't think anybody can give any conversation now. But I think there are a couple of trends and one of them I would say is this equity piece. We are seeing a crop of young African researchers who know what they are bringing to the table.

[00:45:12] And it's no longer, I just want to be a collaborator to get a small piece of the pie. It's saying these are my ideas. These are the perceptions that I bring. These are the skills and the expertise that I bring. Africa is no longer a site, quote unquote,

[00:45:29] for research to go and do your field work as it were. There's a really strong push and commendable push for equity in partnerships and in collaborations. And a lot of people actually want this, right? We know that the power dynamics

[00:45:44] that exist in research partnerships are not serving us. They have never served us. And so it's a lot more exciting to now work with academics that know the value that they bring to the table and are very quick to pick out and to mention when there's inequality,

[00:46:00] when there's exploitation, when there are challenges in the relationships between researchers from different regions. I think of course, there's a lot of movements with technology that's leveraging the existing expertise in the content but really pushing the needle. This is a double edged sword. It could go either way.

[00:46:20] It could help us, you know, double charge research processes and research ecosystems, but it could also alienate a huge number of people who do not have access to that level of technology that is required to the compute power and so forth.

[00:46:38] That's required to really utilize this emerging technologies. I think a third trend which I'm more excited about is this question of centering African ways of knowing, centering African ways of knowledge and centering African knowledge in a way that we haven't done as the research community over the years.

[00:47:03] And it's really satisfying to a conversation on neuro psychiatry and talk about sangomas, you know, talk about the spirituality of African systems in handling mental health issues. It's really endearing to go into climate change conversations and talk about African traditional systems of mitigating climate change.

[00:47:25] It really gives me a lot of hope. It gives me a lot of excitement. And I know as long as we continue learning and privileging knowledge is from every part of the world then we collectively as a world will be moving faster

[00:47:37] and better in terms of handling our social problems. Solutions are not in any one given place. We can all learn and leverage each other's knowledge and expertise. Cause as we learned from COVID, viruses don't understand your visa processes. Viruses don't respect your, you know,

[00:47:56] global south, global north divides and so forth. So our biggest challenge will be to really seed power and be willing to be the best, not just the best in the world, but the best for the world, wherever we are.

[00:48:12] So if we move from current trends and look ahead, I guess, where do you see research collaborations in Africa? How do you see it developing say over the next five years? There's what I think might happen and then what I hope will happen. As an optimist, I think,

[00:48:30] let me say what I hope will happen. What I hope will happen is that we will have this loop that I was talking about, that research will be embedded within questions that communities are asking. That you know, that nurse that is delivering children

[00:48:45] in a rural hospital in Isiolo will be able to ask questions and will be privileged enough to be able to find ways of answering those questions or evaluating the interventions that they bring. And we've seen this in various studies. I mean, one that I can signpost

[00:49:00] is there a thousand nurses study, last let study that is led by a colleague of mine here, Trudy Lang and her team at the Global Health Network. And what they do there is taking nurses that are really the face of healthcare delivery

[00:49:13] and training them to be researchers really. So they can be able to ask the question if someone presents to me with this situation, what options have I got? How do I embed a research program alongside that? So I can see if it works

[00:49:26] and be able to inform the broader community and say this is what I did. This is how I controlled for various factors and these are the results that I saw and you know, and this is how the intervention worked. That way we can be able to respond

[00:49:40] to challenges quicker. There are farmer, he's also a researcher that a farmer decides I've been trying this particular agriculture method for a while. Let me try this new one. And alongside it embed some questions that I ask myself about my crop growth and so forth.

[00:49:55] And I can report back to a broader group of farmers. And we've been doing this as communities for many, many years. I hope research comes out of the universities, comes out of our research organizations and becomes a way of being so that we all can ask the questions.

[00:50:11] We all can try using methods that are known and acceptable to ask these questions and then find the answers for ourselves and move the needle for the questions that we care about the most. Not necessarily depending on whoever has funding to tell us what questions are interesting.

[00:50:29] You know? So I hope that research moves towards that direction. And I hope that innovators and entrepreneurs are part of that conversation because at the end of the day, as I said, there's a three way loop. There's a communities and social actors. There's researchers that help us

[00:50:44] frame our thoughts and our questions. And then there's entrepreneurs that give it a bloodline, you know, give us the sustainability angle and help us scale the solutions that we develop both as communities but also as thinkers, as it were. Yes. So if we look closer to Haeroam,

[00:51:02] where do you see yourself and AFOX in five years time? What impact will you be making with advancing research collaboration in Africa? So I cannot speak for AFOX because it's a network of 3,000 people. They have to speak for themselves. The people have to speak.

[00:51:21] I think, yeah, for AFOX, I think we do want to scale our offerings significantly. Of course, in conversation with colleagues across our partner organizations in Africa, we work at the moment with over 120 institutions across 32 African countries. So we do hope that we can eventually have coverage

[00:51:39] across the continent. We hope that in conversation with our partners, we can be able to continue to co-develop programs that make sense for them, that are helpful for moving the needle on the social challenges that we face at the moment.

[00:51:52] So I think that work is still going to continue. We hope we can scale our offering, both through digital innovation to reach many more people. As I said, not everybody can come to Oxford. So how do we make sure that we can democratize

[00:52:06] access to knowledge that is relevant for people's lives? So that's a big part of what our hope for AFOX will be. And I think we also want to think about impact from a more policy level. So we do a lot of work with researchers, innovators, graduate students.

[00:52:24] I think we want to do a lot more with policymakers to see how we can move these ideas from the research and academic world to actually larger scale impact through policy. I think again, these ideas are just in front ideas.

[00:52:42] They will be co-developed over time with our colleagues. We've been very fortunate to have founders who've allowed us the space to think, to innovate, to implement, to experiment. So I'm hoping that we'll continue leveraging our wonderful funding partners network to be able to really continue doing the work

[00:53:00] in partnership with African colleagues. For myself, I don't know. I don't know what the future brings. I'm excited because we are really at an inflection point as an organization. So I'm excited to see what the future brings. I've been working a lot on how we bring in

[00:53:18] businesses into the research conversation a lot more, how we get university and researchers in the continent involved in business decision-making. So I'm excited to see how we work around that. I'm also very fascinated by the idea of building global Africa collaboration.

[00:53:37] So thinking about what we're doing in Oxford, how that works with people that are doing similar things in Harvard, in McKelry, in Cape Town, in Cambridge and so forth. So that's sort of in the oven. So keep your eyes looped.

[00:53:53] Brilliant. I look forward to seeing how that develops. Very exciting stuff. As people, we often have quotes, mantras, African proverbs or affirmations that keep us going when times are challenging or when times are good. Do you have one that you can share with us today?

[00:54:12] Well, I think this is one of those things that people say and then put at the end an African proverb just to make it cool. No, I'm not sure if it's an actual African proverb. But I read this and was very excited by it. It says,

[00:54:26] he who sleeps on a borrowed mattress sleeps on the floor, an African proverb. I like that saying because if you sleep on a borrowed mattress, you essentially sleeping on the floor. And I think for me, education, you know, our people research, our ideas and innovation, our solutions.

[00:54:47] Those three things are the mattress on which our development, you know, social economic and so forth lies on. And so we can't afford for those to be borrowed. Those have to really be African. They have to be things that we are invested in as communities, as individuals,

[00:55:03] as organization, as businesses. So our people, our education, our research, our ideas and our solutions, our innovations. Those things are really the mattress and we can't, you know, we really have to make sure that they're not, they can't be slipped from our backs

[00:55:20] and then we end up sleeping on the floor. So I think that's the quote that keeps me going. I hope some African country claims it. I've not heard that one before, but thank you for sharing it, Anne. It's a beautiful and very apt proverb.

[00:55:36] I'm going to do my research and check how African it is. But... Maybe we'll call it African because McKenna said it. 100%. But now we've come to the end of today's conversation. It's been a fascinating conversation. Thank you for sharing your insights

[00:55:52] in terms of the impactful work that you're doing through the Africa Oxford Initiative. You're making some extremely profound and personal impact to the people who have taken part in the initiative. And I look forward to seeing how it develops over the next month's years to come.

[00:56:10] Thank you so much, Chassa. It's been really fun being part of this conversation and I'm really excited to see how your work also grows over the years. Oh, thank you for that. Thank you for that, Anne. It's been an absolute pleasure. I've really enjoyed today's conversation.

[00:56:25] It's a conversation I've not had before. So yeah, it's a very refreshing new approach in terms of some of the things that we're seeing happening on the continent. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for making the platform available to us. Be well, bye.

[00:56:41] Thank you to everyone who has listened and stay tuned to the podcast. If you've enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, share or tell a friend about it. You can also rate review us in Apple Podcasts or wherever you download your podcast. Thank you and see you next week

[00:56:58] for the Unlocking Africa podcast.