About

OUR HISTORY

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Global Africa is part of a context where, more than anywhere else, the challenge of knowledge production is a major issue. The African continent has 13% of the world's population but contributes less than 3% to scientific publications. Even today, while the elite of African researchers publish in international journals, the vast majority remain dependent on national contexts marked by local journals and often unattractive university presses. The crisis in higher education in Africa has indeed left the academic community without any viable, credible and efficient publishing medium capable of producing, promoting and disseminating the results of local researchers at the continental level and international, and of developing an essential level of knowledge to include African voices in global debates.

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In most countries, the trade-offs between research, teaching, and consultancy are still made at the expense of research itself. This results in multiple and cumulative failures: significant aspects of ongoing political, socioeconomic, cultural, and environmental transformations remain unintelligible because they are not being internally conceptualized, and teachings do not evolve due to a lack of research. Additionally, there is a disciplinary compartmentalization of research, predominantly produced in English or French, and heavily dominated by men. All of these factors sharply raise questions about its social legitimacy and its lack of integration into society, meaning its ability to identify and tackle the essential needs of societies and institutions.

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