The SAJU Forum has yielded visible successes over time, which could be enhanced through expansion
The South Africa – Japan Universities (SAJU) Forum was this week hailed as a uniquely successful network, characterised at its core by trust, mutuality, co-design and respect. This, according to Professor Ahmed Bawa, Professor at the University of Johannesburg’s Business School and former Chief Executive Officer of Universities South Africa (USAf).
He was delivering one of two keynote addresses at the opening of the three-day SAJU 6 conference on Tuesday, 27 August, where 200 delegates representing 40 Japanese universities, 20 South African universities and other institutions in Kenya, Egypt, and the United States, are gathered. SAJU 6 is being held in person at Stellenbosch University in the Western Cape.
Noting that SAJU 6 was the first in-person meeting since the COVID-19 pandemic, Professor Bawa (left) said one major lesson from that devastating period was “the uncertainty that is so organic and inherent in our time.” He said the pandemic had shown humanity “just how connected our world is, how accessible and how it is necessary to understand how we must rely upon each other to address the challenges that face us.” He said the threat of old and new infectious diseases and the rampage of lifestyle diseases in many parts of the world necessitated the “strengthening of research ties between nations.”
As he expressed his fascination with how Japan engages the world on its own terms, the former USAf CEO said he was missing from this conference, the presence of Professor Masafumi Nagao, Professor Emeritus at Hiroshima University and one of the founding SAJU Forum scholars, and Programme Adviser at the United Nations University’s Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability, who could not attend this time around. He however took solace in the presence of Professor Takahiro Morio, a long-time member of the SAJU Forum Organising Committee representing the University of Tsukuba.
Professor Bawa said the South Africa-Japan Universities relationship stood out favourably when compared with other university partnerships, that were either driven by strictly political imperatives — rendering them platforms for unthinkable geopolitical imaginations — or were influenced by wealth imbalances — real or perceived — that tended to dictate the nature of engagements.
Notable SAJU successes
It was no surprise, therefore, that the research collaborations formed in the context of the SAJU network had produced more than 5,000 publications, generating an average citation rate of about 4.89 — significantly higher than the global average. While the collaborative research projects between the two countries varied in nature, their analysis showed a dominance in them, of high impact, applied-type research projects. Participants in these collaborative studies were predominantly doctoral and master’s students, over 60% of whom were below the age of 50, “providing a sound platform for sustainability of the collaborative research.” Also notable about these scholars was that 61% of them were women, Professor Bawa remarked.
Also addressing the conference, the current USAf CEO, Dr Phethiwe Matutu (below), said the SAJU Forum carried important lessons that could be shared with the world. Labelling this Forum a self-funded South-South partnership, she said it would be a good idea to study this relationship with intent to draw out of it a case study for future reflection and learning, both within the SAJU Forum and beyond.
Dr Matutu added that USAf holds system-to-system collaboration in high regard. In addition to the work undertaken by the Research and Innovation Strategy Group, of leading sector engagements on South Africa’s priority focus areas, year-on-year, Dr Matutu said the USAf Office had also devised some means to identify and track the strengths of member universities, with intent to facilitate matchmaking with similarly inclined local, regional and global institutions for purposes of building effective partnerships. She cited universities’ research focus on the Sustainable Development Goals as an example of such strengths.
Expand beyond research and innovation
As she reflected further on SAJU successes, Dr Matutu asked the Forum to consider collaborating on other areas beyond research and innovation. She mentioned South Africa’s priority focus areas such as entrepreneurship; decolonisation of the curriculum; the world of work “with emphasis on the interface between our universities and industry;” and the application of Artificial Intelligence in teaching and learning. “In my view, that would strengthen this relationship and maximise participation on both sides.”
Incidentally, Professor Bawa would also propose expansion of the SAJU Forum agenda to areas which he said could enhance the future sustainability and relevance of this collaboration. His suggestions are elaborated on below.
- Expanding research focus
He invited the conference to consider expanding research thematic areas with those directly related to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), notwithstanding what he called current contestation around SDGs as a construct. He cited a research study coordinated by the Science Policy Research Unit at Sussex University, which had indicated a decline in research intensity on the SDGs in the Global North over the last two to three years. While this was not the case in the Global South, research focus on SDGs was found to be much lower — hence this proposition, Professor Bawa said.
- Deliberate alignment to TICAD
Secondly, Professor Bawa suggested expanding the SAJU Forum footprint and its successes to the rest of the African continent, and possibly aligning the SAJU Forum research agenda with the priorities of the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD), in keeping with SAJU’s approach to the TICAD 7 agenda in 2019. While acknowledging that this approach implied politicising the SAJU agenda, he said it was worth considering, nonetheless.
- Bigger emphasis on student mobility
Thirdly, he encouraged a bigger emphasis on the mobility of graduate students across the two nations, to create new generations of globally engaged scholars and citizens. Recognising the resource implications of that approach, Professor Bawa said those outweighed the benefits of South African and Japanese students collaborating on projects and building relationships that would sustain the development linkages between these societies.
- Co-taught undergraduate degrees
He also encouraged developing institutional linkages towards co-taught undergraduate programmes akin to the technology-mediated programmes that the Durban University of Technology (DUT) was enjoying with Japanese universities through the Japan hub for Innovative Global Education (JIGE) and SUNY’s Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) initiative. “This could become an additional line of expansion and research for the Forum,” he intimated. Professor Bawa was the Vice-Chancellor and Principal of DUT for close to six years from September 2010 to April 2016.
- SAJU-Industry Forum
Considering the R200 billion (JPY1.6 trillion) worth of trade taking place between Japan and South Africa (by 2022 figures), Professor Bawa suggested a standardised annual engagement between the SAJU Forum and the Japanese industries operating across the two nations. He said he saw that initiative potentially contributing new lines of research and development.
- Expand collaboration to Arts and Culture
Professor Bawa encouraged the SAJU Forum to at least start discussions towards introducing an expansion to collaborations in Arts and Culture, citing another successful collaboration between the DUT’s School of Fashion and the Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology which saw the two institutions jointly hosting periodical student fashion shows.
- Maintain momentum between SAJU conferences
He also encouraged the establishment of institutional homes in Japan and in South Africa that could maintain the work of the Forum between SAJU Forum meetings. Admitting that these would require additional resources, he said those could become the centres through which ongoing activities could be prosecuted, monitored and coordinated.
- Sustainability through resources investment
In closing, the former USAf CEO appealed to both the South African Department of Science and Innovation and Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) to pump more resources into the SAJU Forum, to render this relationship more substantive and sustainable from research, education and scholarly and student exchanges perspectives.
“It requires the commitment of both entities to understand the value of this partnership,” Professor Bawa concluded.
‘Mateboho Green is Universities South Africa’s Manager: Corporate Communication.
