African Research Universities Alliance

The African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA) is an alliance of 16 research universities in Africa. Founded in March 2015 in Dakar, Senegal, ARUA seeks to enhance research and graduate training among its member universities through various avenues, including the establishment up of Certres of Excellence (CoEs) across member institutions. The UK Research and Innovation provided significant funding to support the establishment of the ARUA CoEs. ARUA's approach is hinged on the approach of working together.  ARUA, therefore, brings together peer African universities that are willing to collaborate by pooling their limited resources to generate a critical mass that can more effectively support their limited but growing numbers of researchers. ARUA's efforts are, therefore, centred on four main thrusts - Collaborative research, Training and support for PhDs, Capacity building for research management, Research Advocacy. History The alliance was launched in Dakar, Senegal by fifteen (15) universities in March 2015. These universities included the universities of Lagos, Ibadan and Obafemi Awolowo in Nigeria, the University of Ghana, Makerere University in Uganda, the University of Nairobi in Kenya, the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, the National University of Rwanda, Université Cheikh Anta Diop in Senegal, and in South Africa the universities of the Witwatersrand, Cape Town, Stellenbosch, Pretoria, KwaZulu-Natal and Rhodes. Five (5) of these universities had participated in the Higher Education Research and Advocacy Network in Africa (HERANA) project and thus found commonalities that formed the basis for forming the ARUA network. Carnegie Corporation of New York were instrumental in the initiative.