Africa
Imperial has a wealth of scientists, medics and engineers working across the African continent to co-create the development of interdisciplinary partnerships in areas ranging from machine learning to clean energy technology deployment, cutting edge infectious disease research and fundamental science partnerships in maths and physics.
Each year, we welcome students from over 130 countries. African nations currently represented at Imperial include: Botswana, Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda.
Credit: map design by Ian Dutnall
Imperial’s impact across Sub-Saharan Africa
Financial education
Dr Claudia Custodio has explored how an 18-hour corporate finance executive education programme impacted executives' performance in Mozambique's capital, Maputo. The project discovered not only that executives changed their companies' financial practices as a result of attending the executive education course, but also observed an improvement in the overall performance of the companies led by managers who had attended the executive education programme.
Click here for more informationDigital Kenya
An Imperial College faculty member co-edited this open-access book which investigates the innovation cluster ‘Silicon Savannah’ in Kenya. The book presents evidence-based recommendations to continue producing globally impactful ICT innovations in Kenya, offering key insights through rigorous and original research also for other emerging economies.
Click here for more informationPaediatric research
Imperial Professor, Kath Maitland, has been based in East Africa for the past 20 years. There, she leads a research group which has demonstrated the importance of emergency-care as a targeted and cost-effective means of tackling childhood mortality in resource-limited sub-Saharan Africa.
Click here for more informationSustainable Palm Futures
Global change affects crop production and food security worldwide. Researchers from the Georgina Mace Centre for the Living Planet at Imperial are working with the National Agronomic Centre in Côte d’Ivoire on the genomic architecture of drought tolerance in coconut palms. The project seeks to increase the productivity and incomes of small-scale coconut producers and empower local communities to be able to make better and more sustainable decisions about land management and food production practices.
Click here for more informationGhanaian alumnus
Business leader and Imperial alumnus, Sir Sam Jonah (MSc Mineral Resources Engineering 1979), is Executive Chairman of Jonah Capital, former president of AngloGold Ashanti, and elected member of the National Academy of Engineering. Imperial College London has awarded him the degree of Doctor of Science honoris causa in recognition of his outstanding contribution in business and earth sciences.
Click here for more informationInclusive Agricultural Growth
Adopted by 54 African governments in 2014, the Malabo Montpellier Panel commits signatory countries to halve the number of people in poverty by 2025 through inclusive agricultural growth. Comprised of international agriculture experts, and hosted by Imperial, it focuses on evidence-based analysis, mutual learning and exchange.
Click here for more informationHealthy cities
A major new research partnership has been launched to explore ways of reducing health inequalities in cities around the world. Alongside UCL, Imperial will collaborate with institutions in ten cities, including Accra and Tamale in Ghana. Over four years, the research teams will gather evidence on issues affecting the health of people in urban environments, and work with policymakers to develop evidence-based policies for equitably improving the health of billions of city dwellers.
Click here for more informationWeather data
Hydrology and water resource engineers from Imperial are transforming weather and water data into value-added information services for sustainable growth in Africa. The team aims to provide currently unavailable geo-information on weather, water and climate for sub-Saharan Africa by building on recent advances in sensor and communication technology. This will provide cheaper and more robust in situ measurements covering a wider area at a higher resolution in sub-Saharan Africa.
AIMS agreement
Imperial College has developed a strategic partnership with the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS). AIMS was founded by an Imperial alumnus, Neil Turok, and currently has five centres across Africa in South Africa, Senegal, Ghana, Cameroon and Rwanda. The AIMS centres are hubs of excellence in postgraduate education, research and outreach in mathematical sciences.
Hepatitis B management
The PROLIFICA (Prevention of Liver Fibrosis and Cancer in Africa) programme in The Gambia and Senegal is a unique research platform that builds on strong epidemiological, clinical and scientific collaboration. Set up 2011, it focuses on viral hepatitis research, and with the support of the Gambian and Senegalese Ministries of Health and the local communities, almost 20,000 people have been screened for HBV and about 2,000 infected people have been offered clinical assessment.
Click here for more informationDe-worming initiative
A major 5-year initiative funded by the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation is evaluating strategies to eradicate parasitic worms from communities in Ethiopia. Initially focusing on the 2 million people of the communities in the Wolaita zone in south-eastern Ethiopia, the project aims to identify the optimal design of programmes that will break the transmission of both soil-transmitted worms and schistosomiasis infections.
Click here for more informationTarget Malaria
Professor Austin Burt has been awarded a President’s Medal for his work engaging diverse stakeholders in the context of his work on novel approaches to malaria control. Professor Burt is Principal Investigator of Target Malaria, a research consortium aiming to develop and share new technology to reduce the numbers of malaria-transmitting mosquitoes in sub-Saharan Africa.
Beacon scholarship
Imperial is helping to develop future African leaders with a scholarship for talented young African students. The Beacon Scholarship is open to undergraduate students from Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, to support students in financial need. The project – funded with The Beacon Equity Trust – is the first Imperial scholarship open specifically to students from those countries.
Synthetic Biology skills
Working with a cohort of lecturers in Kenya, Ghana and Cameroon, the BioENGINE Africa project is introducing synthetic biology research skills training into universities through the application of "Design, Build, Test" engineering cycle. The project seeks to inspire and inform researchers to develop impactful diagnostics and materials that are both impactful and feasible in their local setting.
Click here for more informationDigital diagnostics
A multi-disciplinary team bringing together Imperial researchers from Medicine, Engineering and Life Sciences at Imperial are are working to put new disease control tools and strategies into practice. Collaborating with partners across the world, including the University of Ghana, the University of Nairobi and the Medical Research Council Unit The Gambia, they aim to create novel rapid malaria diagnostic detection and surveillance, to combat the spread of this preventable disease in Africa.
Click here for more informationDeveloping engineers
Imperial civil and environmental engineers are working with partners in Ghana and Sierra Leone to develop a generation of skilled engineers. Researchers are collaborating with the University of Sierra Leone and the Sierra Leone Institute of Engineers, as well as Accra Technical University and Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Ghana to help expand and improve engineering courses and enable regional industries to grow.
Click here for more informationWater infrastructure
Engineers and scientists from Imperial and partner institutions are investigating ways to combat the parasitic disease, schistosomiasis, with water infrastructure and novel parasite detection methods. Schistosomiasis affects around 258 million people in 78 countries worldwide and kills an estimated 280,000 people annually.
Click here for more informationTackling HIV
Researchers in the Faculty of Medicine are investigating how to strengthen HIV prevention strategies for women and girls in East Zimbabwe, where young women suffer some of the highest risks of HIV infection anywhere in the world. Using innovative methods from behavioural economics and community psychology, the team hope to develop new knowledge about how individual and external factors work together to impede the use of prevention strategies by young women and their male partners.
Vaccine Manufacturing
Making technology available to manufacture the next generation of vaccines may be critical to ensure Global Heath equity. The Ugandan Virus Research Institute (UVRI) is a member of the Imperial-led Future Vaccine Manufacturing Research Hub. The Hub is committed to researching and co-creating innovative and more cost-effective vaccines for populations in lower- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
Desirable development
Imperial academics from the Centre for Environmental Policy are investigating how pastoralist heritage can be brought to the fore of sustainable development initiatives in Tanzania. The research shows that pastoralist visions of prosperity and a good life, derived from the conceptual pillars of land, livestock and culture, and founded on healthy ecosystems, hinge on dignified treatment of pastoral heritage.
Antimalarial resistance mutations
Malaria is a leading cause of child mortality in the developing world. Imperial Public Health Researchers are working to inform the DRC National Malaria Control Programme by tracking the flow of malaria parasites and drug resistance within the DRC and across its borders. This will provide a map with an unprecedented scale and resolution to define the evolution and spread of antimalarial resistance mutations.
Sustainable farming
A project designed to draw over a million farmers into sustainable global food supply chains is being led by College academics in the Business School. The WINnERS project aims to insure farmers against crop loss caused by weather hazards and climate change. This is expected to save the average supply chain – from smallholder farmers to end buyers such as supermarkets - billions of dollars per year. The project is being rolled out through Tanzania initially, with 50,000 newly insured farmers before being extended across Sub-Saharan Africa.
Infectious Disease
HIV and TB are amongst the most pressing public health problems in Africa. Imperial has an infectious disease research unit in Cape Town led by Professor Robert Wilkinson. The team, in collaboration with Medecins Sans Frontieres-South Africa and the provincial and City Health authorities, operates a major community site in Khayelitsha township that delivers novel interventions.
Click here for more informationLung health
Paediatricians from Imperial are investigating lung function trajectories in African children from birth to 8 years of age, to identify early-life risk factors associated with low lung function. The team will focus on early-life exposures and respiratory outcomes during childhood, as the course of long-term lung health is established in these early years. Lung diseases are a major cause of ill health and premature death globally, with a particularly large burden in Africa.
Pharmaceutical manufacturing
A Global Challenges Research Fund project is aiming to support the establishment of pharmaceutical manufacturing infrastructure in South Africa. The project involves collaboration between the Centre for Rapid Online Analysis of Reactions (ROAR) at Imperial, the University of Pretoria and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, to boost South Africa’s self-sufficiency in medication manufacture. This will reduce the country’s reliance on imports, and reduce the cost of medication for the local population.
Click here for more informationConflict-injury hub
Conflict-related death and injury are major contributors to the global burden of disease. Imperial bioengineers from the Centre for Blast Injury Studies (CBIS) are working with the University of Global Health Equity and University of Rwanda to understand the injury burden from civil war and to save limbs after blast and gunshot injuries. The team is developing a low-cost external fixator that can be made in low-resource settings from local materials, using local machines.....
Click here for more informationTechnological solutions
A group of Imperial students are developing sustainable technological solutions for rural African communities. E.quinox’s vision is to empower communities through electrification and product development, providing affordable, reliable, and clean electricity and other utility services to millions who are living without. E.quinox started over ten years ago and has provided electricity to over 400 households in Rwanda and Tanzania
Click here for more informationElectricity access
Imperial electrical and electronic engineers are collaborating with commercial and academic partners in Rwanda to understand how small-scale generation, mini-grids and large regional electricity grids can work together to improve access to electricity. The team hopes to create technologies that can connect these systems in a safe and cost-effective way, while still allowing them to operate independently........
Click here for more informationChild development
Imperial academics are working to feed school children from low-income communities in Nigeria. The Partnership for Child Development (PCD) was set up to address the health, nutrition and education needs of young people in LMICs. For more than 27 years, Dr Lesley Drake has been involved in these efforts, providing evidence-based technical support to governments, recognising the importance of the investment in their children. The work of PCD and Dr Drake were highlighted as an example of best practice by The Parliamentary Review.
Tuberculosis research
A team of researchers at Imperial have partnered with the University of Namibia with the aim of identifying all multidrug-resistant tuberculosis cases diagnosed in two regions of the country. Each year over half a million individuals develop multidrug-resistant (MDR) tuberculosis (TB), a type of TB caused by organisms that are resistant to the first-line drugs currently available.
Click here for more informationMedical training
Imperial alumna, Kate Mandeville, has established a charity to support Malawian medical students. The Medic-to-Medic Programme allows British doctors and medical students sponsor named medical students in developing countries. The lack of trained doctors in Malawi impedes the delivery of basic healthcare to the country's population, but by providing students' medical fees for a full year, the programme is supporting the next generation of Malawi's doctors.
Click here for more informationCongolese Geology Scholar
Benedicte Nzolantima, from Kinshasa, was the winner of the College's BMO Scholarship for Women in Metals and Energy Finance. She says: "As a woman in the mining industry, especially a Congolese one, right now, I feel like its good timing, because there's not a lot of representation in the mining industry in Congo," she said. "But I'm also aware that, as a woman, there are clearly some challenges."
Click here for more informationKey to faculty
- Engineering
- Business School
- Natural Sciences
- Medicine
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