Setting up a collaborative PhD Programme in Sustainable Development Studies

27 Aug 2024 | By Charmaine Smith
Photo of an African map with a magnifying glass over it
27 Aug 2024 | By Charmaine Smith

The ARUA collaborative PhD programmes are an aspiring project that intends to significantly change how doctoral training is done in the region. Importantly, the pilot phase of the programmes will target young African students and comes with an admission target of 70% women in each cohort. The overall goal is to graduate 1,000 PhD students annually at ARUA member universities.

Prof. Ernest Aryeetey, who was the Secretary-General of ARUA until he retired at the end of last month, says this ARUA project “is designed to develop a template that could be used by all African universities for the future growth of PhD programmes”. 

The Mastercard Foundation will support the first 10 years of the programmes.

The Sustainable Development Studies PhD Programme has two distinct prongs: Sustainable Development Economics; and Climate and Development Studies. 

The programme is curated by a team from ACEIR and the ARUA Centre of Excellence in Climate and Development (ARUA-CD) with key partners from two of the Clusters of Research Excellence (CoREs) set up by ARUA and The Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities (The Guild). 

These Africa-Europe Clusters – in Inequalities, Poverty, and Deprivation (CoRE IPD); and on Nature-based Solutions for Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation (CoRE-NBS), comprise researchers from ACEIR, ARUA-CD, and The Guild universities. 

ACEIR’s director, Prof. Murray Leibbrandt from the University of Cape Town, says the two ARUA centres in collaboration with their respective CoRE partners are not only embarking on an interdisciplinary research and teaching journey with this programme. 

“We aim to gradually transform the institutional framework towards transdisciplinary work within our universities.”

The programme is to be built off strong foundations, Prof. Leibbrandt points out, as the institutions leading the collaboration are fully committed to supporting a programme of this scale and complexity. 

“The institutional excellence that comes with the programme partners promises the delivery of a unique and valuable collaborative programme of research, graduate training, and broader capacity building at a scale that currently does not exist.”

A challenge-based learning approach for real-world problem-solving

“To generate solutions to Africa's development challenges, this PhD programme must significantly differ from traditional ones”, says Prof. Robert D. Osei, convenor of ACEIR’s Ghana node at the University of Ghana. He is the PhD programme co-lead for ARUA together with Prof. Leibbrandt. 

“While the programme will leverage disciplinary strengths and methods, it will be interdisciplinary as much as possible and challenge-based to engage students in real-world problem-solving.”

A joint research and capacity building project on the interactions between climate action and inequality by ACEIR and ARUA-CD researchers have already demonstrated the potential for interdisciplinary research across climate and economics. 

The PhD programme's intention to tackle real-world issues will emphasise understanding and addressing the factors that influence growth, poverty dynamics, and sustainable development in Africa. Specific attention will be given to the Sustainable Development Goals.

Prof. Osei says PhD candidates will at the onset be guided on course selection that is relevant to their individual career and development plans. Once coursework is successfully completed, they will be embedded at collaborating institutions in research projects that overlap with their own interests and project work. 

This includes the opportunity to work with the programme’s CoRE partner universities in Europe, giving them access to world-class research capacities and mentorship.

In this way the PhD students will be exposed to working in diverse research teams and get networking and career progression opportunities. Other components of the programme will help students to hone their communication skills; and to establish close ties with businesses, civil society, and policy communities to prepare those interested in employment outside academia.

Fully paid for, and flexible 

Inadequate funding to support students has been recognised by ARUA universities as one of the contributors to the continent’s low output of PhD graduates, according to Prof. Aryeetey.

Providing adequate financial support to students is therefore important to ensure the ARUA PhD programmes are accessible to students from diverse socio-economic backgrounds, especially female PhD candidates who often have competing caregiving and income-earning responsibilities. 

Prof. Leibbrandt says the Sustainable Development Studies programme will make available competitive scholarships for full-time studies without the need for taking on additional paid work. 

“The programme also considers the reality of unpaid care work and family responsibilities by allowing students to customise their study-abroad times according to their needs.” 

Sustainable development through the lens of two disciplines 

The first stream of the programme – in Sustainable Development Economics – aims to provide comprehensive training to PhD candidates across the University of Cape Town, the University of Ghana, and the University of Nairobi. International collaborations on this prong of the programme are The Guild’s CoRE IPD partners, the University of Groningen and Aarhus University; and the African Economic Research Consortium, which has the largest network of an existing collaborative PhD training in economics on the continent.

The second stream, in Climate and Development Studies, aims to provide interdisciplinary training at four ARUA universities: the University of Cape Town, University of Ghana, University of Nairobi, and Stellenbosch University. The Guild’s CoRE-NBS partner is the University of Bologna.

Students in the programme will have to complete several interdisciplinary courses to equip them with the resourcefulness needed to address the complexity of sustainable development challenges.

Existing data hubs an excellent resource for doctoral studies

High-quality data are a vital resource for PhD projects. The programme, therefore, will provide access to ACEIR’s cross-sectional and – uniquely – longitudinal datasets on inequality, poverty, and development in Africa. Together with datasets used by ARUA-CD for analysis of climate change risk, its impacts, adaptation, climate governance and implications on human development, the programme will be able to offer collaborative PhD students access to an excellent data hub, or linked data hubs.  

Such a data hub/s would be a most impactful research infrastructure contribution by this collaborative programme.

In addition, the University of Groningen’s Growth and Development Centre brings a set of comprehensive databases on indicators of growth and development that are important for tracking and understanding long-run economic development patterns in Africa, and internationally. And, the ARUA partner universities’ extensive network, especially with national statistical offices, will also help make relevant data accessible to the students.

Policy assessments and evaluation skills are important components

Given the programme’s aim to be relevant to contemporary regional and global development challenges, policy impact evaluation and training in rigorous evaluation techniques will be prioritised. A course is planned to equip students with the necessary skills to conduct comprehensive policy assessment.

Prof. Leibbrandt says that, overall, students enrolled in this PhD programme will to be equipped to apply methodological and analytical tools to address any of the SDGs from a multidisciplinary perspective.

“The programme will be designed to be highly attractive to individuals – especially Africans – who aspire to become impactful scholars, researchers, policymakers, or international development practitioners”.

The programme commences in 2026 and aims to award up to 100 new PhD scholarships to students each year during the ARUA project’s pilot phase.

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