INTRODUCTION

Internationalization of Schools, Universities and research organizations is the biggest term in use in the international education circles. In a global village like the world is today, internationalization of education and research is a crucial engine that drives international competitiveness and ultimately economic and social revolutions. Developing an internationalization agenda for a school, university and research organisations and its authorities under PIE has the following benefits:

1. Developing its brand, profile and relevance both nationally and internationally and establish international partnership with reputable institutions overseas.
2. Increasing extensive independent revenue generation streams for the schools, university and the successful sourcing, application and winning of international research grants and funding.
3. Increase its interaction and engagement with the private sector and governance for sustainable and impactful applied-focused education, training and research.
4. Delivering social, economic, academic and spiritual impacts of international standards on its students for consequent impacts on national economies.
5. Developing a graduate portfolio that is employable in any part of the world due to uniformity in competence and acquired skills.
6. To analyze the huge potential of the African market and the strategy for an African school, university or research institution to develop its profile and relevance to take advantage of this huge market. 

OVERVIEW

According to The Africa Competitiveness Report put together by the World Economic Forum, The World Bank and The African Development Bank, there is a growing international attention focused on Africa as an investment destination and mounting talk of an African economic renaissance. The report emphasized the enthusiasm in global players driven by ten years of increased strong growth in Africa amidst the global economic crises that other continents of the world have faced. With over a billion people and averaging growth rates of over 5 percent in the last decade, it is a business destination of immense potentials. It is therefore important for an African University to view and develop its research and innovation profile and relevance to be able to take advantage of the growing African market and this is one of the objectives of this programme.

Yearly, managers, directors and administrators of African Universities strive to develop their skills and capacity to be able to bridge the competence gaps in their universities and this is one of the fundamental roles of Vice Chancellors and University managements. One of the biggest challenges facing African Universities is funding and this has become the priority need of all. However, in an era where there is an increase in the numbers and sources of international research grants focused on Africa, African institutions still struggle to align themselves with these research and innovation funding opportunities and even lack the capacity and institutional skills to source, apply for and win these sorts of grants. This is a crucial aspect that this programme would deliver on.  

In most African countries, Public Universities depend wholly on federal government who now struggle to fund them; they don’t speak with private sector folks who can potentially fund them; personal consulting is huge but secret so institutions benefit nothing; they don’t recruit overseas students who can give more in tuition that may then impact on research funding; MoUs that can attract research funding gather dusts on shelves; access to increasing international research grants is a struggle; and when they apply for research and innovation grants, proposals are poor; delivering short professional courses for revenue is an alien concept; investing in research-driven distance learning and exploiting the huge potential for distance learning is still unclear and problematic. The situation is not so much different in private Universities either. PIE aims to address sustainable ways of developing alternative sustainable funding for African Universities which can be integrated into research and innovation.  

For different African institutions, overseas trips are crucial for exposure, international experiences and keeping abreast with new global models in research management and administration. Most of these visits leads to the development of Memorandum of Understandings (MOUs), signed between African Universities and overseas university. However, research shows that while different African Universities have several MOUs signed with overseas Universities, most of these MOUs remain unused and gather dust on shelves. It requires the right knowledge, expertise, skills and resources to activate and operationalize these MOUs for increased collaborative research and innovation and this is another objective of PIE.

Finally, one of the biggest challenges with African Universities is the huge gap between academia and research and the private sector/industry and government. By geographical and operational disposition, African universities and research organizations seem cut off from industry and this has affected its relevance, capacity to produce high quality research with impact, employable graduates and also the capacity to produce innovative goods and services that solves practical challenges in the society. The world patents map below shows this clearly with African almost unrepresented in the patents map globally.

Currently, global models show that African Universities can be ‘anchors’ in co-designing and supporting research-driven eco-innovation partnerships with the businesses which ultimately deliver “sustainable solutions”.  Second, they can play the key role in delivering the high level (graduate/post-graduate) skills that are essential to drive forward eco-innovative policies, products and services. However, exploiting the power of universities to drive African research and eco-innovation will require significant capacity building to bridge the current, very significant gap between academia and industry in Africa.  This is a significant component of the PIE initiative.