HE experts tackle barriers to inter-regional collaboration

GLOBAL

A group of global experts on higher education came together recently to explore strategies for equitable, collaborative research between high-, low- and middle-income countries towards a sustainable energy future. They also discussed partnership models and financing for research and education.

The round-table discussion, ‘Equitable South-North partnerships in sustainable energy research, innovation, and higher education’, was held on 19 November at the just-ended 29th session of the Conference of Parties (COP29) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC.

During his opening remarks, Professor Anders Hammer Strømman, vice dean of sustainability at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, noted that, while the gaps in climate action financing between developing and developed countries was at the core of COP29, an important subset of this broader challenge was the gap in research and education levels between the Global North and South.

“Universities across the world have played key roles in enabling our societies to obtain the knowledge and capacities required to clearly understand, adapt and mitigate climate change,” he said.

“Higher education is a key enabler for innovations and advancements in all fields, spanning from engineering sciences, natural sciences and social sciences humanities, all of which are needed in combination to address the complex, intertwined challenges we are facing in our transition towards a sustainable global society.

“Building capacity to accommodate further increases in enrolment rates is also tied to research activities. The essence of universities is that we conduct research-based education. This implies that faculty should ideally be enabled to constantly advance their competences in research which, in turn, advances our education and can inform policymakers,” he said.

UNESCO estimates that about 260 million students are enrolled in tertiary education and, in the period between 2000 and 2022, the share of global youth embarking on higher education increased from 20% to 40%.

Regional differences

In Europe and North America, more than 80% of youth enter further education after high school. At the same time, on average, across Latin America and the Caribbean, East and Southeast Asia, the same numbers range from 55% to 60%.

In West Africa, the average is around 50%, and for Central and Southern Asia, it drops towards 30%. However in Sub-Saharan Africa, only about 10% of young people pursue tertiary education.

The large regional differences are also apparent in the share of GDP given over to research. According to UNESCO, North America and Europe allocate, on average, about 2.5% towards research. At the same time, many middle-income regions allocate only 0.5% of their GDP towards research, and some of the low-income countries only half of that.

“These low numbers will constitute a long-term developmental challenge of the knowledge, capacities and innovations needed to ensure a successful transition towards sustainable economies in all regions,” said Strømman.

“So the broader question is how the education sector collaborates better across high-, medium- and low-income countries and this includes: How do we follow up on opportunities for direct collaboration in education, the education of educators and also research collaborations?”

South-South cooperation

During the session, Professor Andrea Santos, an associate professor at the University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, argued that universities could help to bridge the gap regarding research and development and help to establish partnerships to increase capacity-building and scaling up of solutions towards green economies.

“At the University of Rio de Janeiro we have 13 engineering programmes and, with those, over 100 facilities to support research and learning, including laboratories. However, we are still facing some challenges in increasing South-South cooperation,” she said.

“When it comes to student mobility, there is more collaboration with developed countries in the Global North. We have also collaborated with China and India but, for example, in Indonesia, where we have more synergies, especially regarding forestry … there are no agreements or collaborations.

“I believe Brazil has a lot of good experience in education and research but we are facing difficulties since the COVID 19 pandemic. The numbers and indicators show that we are now trying to attract more students to go into research because many students are moving to developing countries, so we need to do more fundraising and work closely with industry to increase capacity-building and our research and development,” she said.

Dr Subodh Dhakal, an associate professor and head of the geology department at Tribhuvan University in Nepal, said limited funding and lack of opportunities to collaborate were a major challenge for emerging scientists, particularly in the climate sciences.

“Climate science has become very advanced in recent years. Maybe this is because of the innovation and technology. Nepal has very limited universities, and when it comes to research allocation, it can even come to 0.01% [of GDP] and this impacts on the youth who are into climate research and innovations.

“There are very limited opportunities and the link between the Global South and Global North can provide huge opportunities for our early- and mid-career scientists,” he said.

Cities as innovation hubs

Lea Renalder, associate programme management officer at United Nations Habitat, highlighted the existence of data and knowledge gaps at the city level and called for more funding for universities to enable more research and innovation.

“It is critical that we think of research and academia and about the role that cities can play as places of innovation and knowledge hubs. Cities are where most universities are based, and they are also experiencing a massive lack in terms of the just transition and energy transition.

“From my work, I see there is an interest at the local level for specific technologies, but the skills don’t exist. A very practical example is heat pumps: there is government support for them but there are no skills among installers who can make this happen at the local level. There is a big opportunity for reskilling, but also for capacity-building that universities and other research centres can take advantage of,” she said.

One major focus for the UN Habitat is its network of 9,000 universities and knowledge hubs designed to facilitate knowledge exchanges and collaborations between universities, and between urban practitioners and academia.

Looking ahead, Renalder said an upcoming special report on climate change and cities by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was one of the collaborative efforts bringing together global institutions, academia, urban practitioners and policymakers.

“The IPCC report was really designed to make sure that it is actionable and implementable, and it can provide the kind of research that is needed to help our cities to address the kind of climate emergencies that we are in. So the most important thing is that we have been making sure that there is an interconnection between academia and practitioners and that the research and knowledge that is coming out of this can be implementable.

“We have been doing this mainly through our Innovate for Cities conference that was [held] in Montreal two months ago, hosted by the Global Covenant of Mayors and UN Habitat, that was about bringing together academia, researchers, innovators, urban practitioners and policymakers to identify knowledge gaps, and the kind of collaboration we need in order to inform better decision-making at the local level and at the national level,” said Renalder.