Embedding anticipatory science diplomacy in South African higher education governance: A framework for ethical foresight and adaptive leadership

Abstract Public universities in South Africa – and globally – are being asked to do more than teach and produce knowledge. They are expected to steward shared futures amid technological disruption, ecological instability, political volatility, and entrenched social inequality. Yet governance practices often remain procedurally rigid and reactive, shaped by compliance imperatives and inherited administrative logics that assume a more predictable environment than the one universities now inhabit. This paper proposes a Governance Learning and Development Framework that reframes governance as a site of learning – where anticipatory capacity, ethical judgement, and systems awareness can be strengthened through routine decision practices rather than episodic training. Using a theory-adaptation approach, the paper takes the Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator’s (GESDA) Anticipatory Science Diplomacy framework – developed for the multilateral system – and adapts it for the internal governance of universities, reading it through three lenses: Complexity Theory, the King V Code of Corporate Governance, and Heracleous and Lan’s [56] ‘Third Possibility.’ The adaptation yields a four-module learning model – Systems and Complexity Thinking, Ethical Foresight and Legitimacy, Stakeholder Governance, and Futures Literacy and Science Diplomacy – designed to be embedded in ordinary governance rhythms such as agenda-setting, decision papers, and minutes. Illustrative examples from South African innovation contexts are used to show why anticipatory governance matters when universities operate as nodal institutions linking science, society, and diplomacy. The paper argues that governance learning is a practical pathway for universities to ‘thrive together’ by making ethical reasoning, stakeholder legitimacy, and future consequences visible at the point of decision.