SDG3

• In the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2024, for instance, South Africa’s University of Cape Town is top for the continent, at 167th place.
• It is followed by three other South African institutions: Stellenbosch University and the University of the Witwatersrand, which sit between 301 and 350, and the University of Johannesburg between 401 and 500.
• The first sub-Saharan non-South African institution, Ghana’s University of Cape Coast, is in the group 601-800.
• Several institutions, such as the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, have even withdrawn their participation from some rankings.
• Responding to the challenge of sustainable development is an especially pressing concern for African universities.

A mandate and a mission

• Many African economies have grown rapidly in recent times, but sustainable development challenges remain.
• Conflict over resources and the effects of climate change are also major challenges.
• So it is very welcome that several African universities place well in some of these new impact rankings.
• Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), meanwhile, scores top for its contribution to SDG 4 (Quality Education).

Filling the gaps

• Research on the roles of universities in their communities, including and beyond teaching and research, has focused on the global north.
• This relatively limited attention may reflect wider inequalities in global knowledge production, and negative perceptions of the work African universities do.
• We want to address these gaps.
• We will use a social innovation perspective to investigate how African universities are contributing to achieving the UN SDGs.

• The research will be pursued in collaboration with the WUN Global Higher Education and Research (GHEAR) network which also provided funding for the project and all authors.
• Nothing to disclose.

• Prof.Zhang's research article, "Ultrahigh permeance functionalised boron nitride membrane for nanoconfined heterogeneous catalysis", has been published in Chem Catalysis on 3rd of Feb, 2022 ( https://doi.org/10.1016/j.checat.2022.01.003 ).
• Water pollution is mainly caused by anthropogenic activities and could disrupt the smooth functioning of economic activities and human health.
• Due to these severe consequences, clean water (SDG6) and good health (SDG3) are included in the UN sustainable development goals.
• Co-BNNS membrane showed good stability and outperformed previously developed membrane-confined catalysis systems (up to 26-fold higher permeance).