This is a hybrid event. Please register for in-person attendance, or register to join this event online.

The panel discussion will be introduced by a keynote titled Leading a Pan-African Social Science Research Organisation: Lessons from Experience by Dr Godwin Murunga. The high-level panel preceded by the keynote will discuss the role of higher education institutions in Africa and will draw on the expertise and experience of several leading African educators and practitioners to examine how education systems can be pillars in disrupting distances.

The panelists will respond to the following questions among others:

• How do continental knowledge institutions shape the dialogue between people and states as well as, the conversation between Africa and its global partners?

• What innovations in higher education can enable the next generation transform their engagement with discriminatory and exclusionary systems and structures?

• How are African university engagements with international higher education institutions shifting partnership dynamics with the Global North and across the Global South?

This event is supported by the Africa-Europe Cluster of Research Excellence on Interdisciplinary Peace.

About the keynote speaker

Dr Godwin Murunga

Dr Godwin R. Murunga is the 7th Executive Secretary of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), where he is currently serving his second term. Prior to joining CODESRIA, he was a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Development Studies, University of Nairobi. Prior to that he was a Visiting Professor at the Global Institutes, King’s College London from 2013 to 2016; and a lecturer in history at Kenyatta University in Nairobi, Kenya from 1995 to 2013.

Dr Murunga is a trained historian with a PhD from Northwestern University in Illinois, specialising in urban history but with research interests that span a range of intersecting thematic issues, including politics of knowledge production, gender, African democratisation processes and masculinities in Africa. As part of his professional engagements, he remains deeply engaged with the evolving dynamics of the higher education sector in Africa. A former Director and Deputy Director of the African Leadership Centre (ALC) in Nairobi, Dr Murunga also served as a Trustee of the ALC Trust.

He has served on numerous boards, including as a member of the CODESRIA Executive Committee for two consecutive terms (2005-2011). Currently, he serves on the boards of the Association for Research on Civil Society in Africa (AROCSA), the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), and on the Programme Advisory Committee of the Amandla Institute, based in Abuja, Nigeria. Dr Murunga holds a BA and MA from Kenyatta University, Nairobi and a MA and PhD in history from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, USA.

About the panelists

Professor Christopher Isike

Christopher Isike, PhD, is a Professor of African Politics and International Relations and Head of Department of Political Sciences at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. The founding Director of the African Centre for the Study of the United States, University of Pretoria (ACSUS-UP), Professor Isike is also the current President of the African Association of Political Science (AAPS) and a member of the Board of Directors of Global Development Network (GDN). He also sits on the Advisory Board of Society of Gender Professionals (SGP).

With over 80 publications in top national and international peer-reviewed journals including chapters in books published by reputable publishing houses globally, Professor Isike’s latest edited books include  Big Brother Naija and Popular Culture in Nigeria: A Critique of the Country’s Cultural and Economic Diplomacy Palgrave Macmillan (2023, with O. Ogunnubi, and O. Ukwueze) and Conflict and Conviviality: The Ambivalence of African Migrant/Host Relations in South Africa, Palgrave Macmillan (2022, with E. Isike). Professor Isike consults for the UNFPA, UNICEF, UN Women and the KwaZulu-Natal provincial government on gender equality and women empowerment issues in South Africa. He has just concluded his 4 year term as a Social Cohesion Advocate of South Africa appointed by the Minister of Sports, Arts and Culture in 2020.

Professor Dzodzi Tsikata

Dzodzi Tsikata is a Professor of Development Studies at SOAS University of London. She spent thirty years at the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) at University of Ghana rising through the ranks from Junior Research Fellow to Research Professor of Development Sociology. Between 2016 and 2022, she was Director of the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana, and before then, Deputy Director and Director of the Centre for Gender Studies and Advocacy (2005-2012). She is currently an Adjunct Professor at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana. 

Her research in the last 30 years has been centred on the gendered labour relations of agrarian and urban informal economies, the trajectories of African social policy regimes and gender and development policies and practices. She has led pan-African research teams to study these subjects, engaged in extensive fieldwork across Ghana and undertaken occasional field visits in Kenya, Tanzania and Zimbabwe over the years. She is currently the Principal Investigator of a pan-African research, networking and advocacy project, the Gender Equitable and Transformative Social Policy for Post-COVID-19 Africa (GETSPA).

Dzodzi is a leading member of several independent global South capacity building, research, and policy advocacy networks, including the International Development Economics Associates (IDEAS), the Agrarian South Network, Third World Network Africa, and the Network for Women’s Rights in Ghana. She is the Managing Editor of the pan-African journal, Feminist Africa and a member of the editorial collective of Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy. She is currently a board member of the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), the Development Network DAWN, and Africa Journals Online (AJOL) and the Centre for Democracy and Development in Abuja. She is a Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Professor Ihron Rensburg,

Visiting Professor at King's College London

Professor Ihron Rensburg is a distinguished academic and leader in higher education. He served as the Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of Johannesburg from 2006 to 2017, where he played a pivotal role in transforming the institution into a leading research university.

He is the Chairperson of both the South Africa UNESCO National Commission and the READ Foundation. He was a Commissioner of South Africa's first National Planning Commission and chaired the working group on Social Protection and Human Capabilities. In the 1980s he was the General Secretary of South Africa's (anti-apartheid) National Education Crisis Committee.

He is a respected voice in the fields of social justice, educational transformation, and public policy, and has contributed significantly to national and international dialogues on these issues. Prof Rensburg continues to influence the academic and public sectors through his research, publications, and speaking engagements.

About the moderator

Professor Eka Ikpe

Eka Ikpe is a Professor of Development Economics in Africa and Director of the African Leadership Centre at King's College London.

Eka’s research offers a critical understanding of socio-economic transformation that centres spaces in Africa and parts of the Global South across the fields of economic development and peace. Her current themes of interest include state capital and development, industrial development, structural transformation, creative economies, health, peacebuilding and reconstruction. Her research has been funded by the Carnegie Corporation, EPSRC, ESRC, AHRC, IDRC, among others.

Eka currently co-leads two Africa-Europe Clusters of Research Excellence (CoRE). The first is the CoRE on Creative Economies and the second is the CoRE on Interdisciplinary Peace. Eka’s research has supported the work of the UNECA, ECOWAS, UK Ministry of Defence, UK All Party Parliamentary Group on Africa, UK Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee, UK FCDO and global NGOs, among others.

Eka is co-editor of the Book Series, Peace, Society and the State in Africa (Bloomsbury), African Perspectives on Peacebuilding and Leadership (Bloomsbury) and Creative Economies in Africa (Routledge) and part of the Editorial Collectives of African Security Review, Africa Development, Leadership and Developing Societies and African Journal for Creative Economy. She serves as a Trustee for the global thinktank, ODI Global.

As part of her work on creative economies, Eka has contributed non-textual outputs including a documentary film, Creative Women in Lagos and an exhibition, Intertwined: Fashion, Textile and Heritage in Nigeria (London and Nairobi), among others.

About King's Africa Week

Hosted by the African Leadership Centre and Africa research group, Africa Week is an annual celebration of research, education and outreach activities on Africa.

King's Africa Week brings together academics, researchers and students from across King's – and offers the opportunity to hear from African scholars, leaders and thinkers. It also showcases King's collaboration with African universities and partners.

Find out more about Africa Week