Advancing just and sustainable urban transitions: strengthening the role(s) of African universities

The distinctiveness of urban processes and dynamics in Africa are of global significance. Achieving sustainable transitions in African cities must necessarily engage with theory and practice, which are derived out of context, and applied in systems and structures that are not globally understood. As sites of knowledge production, universities on the continent have a key role to play in addressing Sustainable Development Goal 11, which seeks to make cities sustainable. The ‘third mission’ of universities, which involves shaping societal benefits, extends their traditional mandates of research and higher education teaching beyond and across academic disciplines, to engage in local and global partnerships. Evidence from a range of knowledge co-production programmes anchored at African universities show that transdisciplinary approaches have made positive contributions to society. With the goal of realising the full potential of sustainability transitions, a network of scholars convened around a series of workshops to understand and enhance the effectiveness of the New African Urban University. Through processes of knowledge exchange, the network showed that realising the full potential is hampered by challenges of working across and beyond disciplines, highlighting the structural and systemic shifts required within African universities. Furthermore, partnering across the Global North and South in international transdisciplinary programmes is beset by power dynamics that shape assumptions and practices based on universalised assumptions about both theory and practice. This article outlines dimensions of an agenda to inform a more global and inclusive positioning of African universities as agents of social change.