A new forum for scientific collaboration in Africa, ASTIL (African Science, Technology and Innovation Leaders), was launched in January, headed by Heide Hackmann.
“Strategic discussions on science take place behind closed doors on the African continent. Science actors in Africa almost never discuss with each other, and debates on the same topics run parallel,” Heide Hackmann, holder of the “Futures of Science” chair at CREST (Center for Research in Evaluation, Science and Technology) at Stellenbosch University in South Africa, told News Tank’s Africa bureau on April 28, 2025.
“To improve the visibility of African science, and to meet the needs and interests of the African scientific community, these leaders must meet regularly. “It is for this purpose that we created the Astil (African Science, Technology and Innovation Leaders) forum,” she adds.
The inaugural meeting of ASTIL, held in Stellenbosch at the end of March 2025, brought together representatives from CREST and the Universities of Pretoria and Cape Town, South Africa, as well as representatives from six networks of universities and research institutes that form its founding core:
- the African Academy of Sciences (AAS);
- the Network of African Academies of Sciences (NASAC);
- the Association of African Universities (AAU);
- the African Alliance of Research Universities (ARAU);
- the Science for Africa Foundation (SFA Foundation);
- the Initiative of Funding Agencies for Scientific Research (IOSRS/SGCI).
Astil’s objectives and organization
Connecting African research stakeholders to facilitate collaboration: that is the mission of Astil. “By becoming a member, you will know what others are doing, you will gain access to strategic discussions taking place on the continent and around the world, and you will contribute to expanding the influence and amplifying the voice of African science on the global stage,” Heide Hackmann adds.
ASTIL allows its members to collaborate with each other and present a united front in discussions on science policy in Africa. This helps prevent, for example, African leaders from meeting for the first time during discussions held outside the continent, as often happens. The forum also aims to build a critical mass that would make it a point of entry to the continent for partners from other parts of the world.
“Usually, with this kind of initiative, you would need to develop a governance model, a constitution, rules and regulations for members, and that would take five years,” the leader reports. Astil is therefore being built “from the bottom up”: the priority is first to bring together the founding organizations. Technical discussions on the organization and rules of the forum will take place later.
Access limited to founding members
This has the effect of limiting, at least for the time being, access to the forum to its founding members. “What we want to do is, instead of dealing with administrative details, such as admissions, we will focus on a specific issue, like funding for science, technology, and industry, to demonstrate what we can achieve.”
With the hope that the results of Astil’s initial work on research funding in Africa will encourage other members to apply. The forum’s launch was funded by Stellenbosch University, which committed for three years, and by Future Africa, a collaborative research platform at the University of Pretoria that Heide Hackmann led for two years. This initial funding enabled the organization of the project’s initial meetings. “So we also supported the forum members,” she assures. “But in the future, we will need to talk to them and tell them that we now need long-term support.”
This article produced by Afriscitech was published by NewsTank Education & Research on April 28, 2025. It is reproduced with the kind permission of NewsTank, and has been translated to English by Afriscitech.
