Focus on sustainable development for new Sida course in Africa and Lund
Published: 2021-11-30
The transformation capacity of some developing countries needs to be reinforced to enable them to meet present and future societal challenges. In view of this, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) has now signed a four-year agreement with Lund University regarding commissioned education courses in innovation, transformation and resilience for sustainable development.
The course provider will be the Department of Economic History at Lund University School of Economics and Management (LUSEM).
The second-cycle course is part of a project is called African Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators Initiative. It aims to strengthen the capacity to develop the use of indicators for research, technology and innovation in planning and policy-making at the national, regional and continental levels in Africa. Lund University is to contribute to the project’s goals through the training of professionals in organisations working within national and regional innovation systems.
“This is an excellent opportunity for us at the Department of Economic History, but also for the School of Economics and Management as a whole, to learn about, and be involved in, activities that have a direct connection with key aspects of trying to fulfil the global development and sustainability goals,” says associate professor Martin Andersson, who will be the course director.
The target group is middle managers, or high-ranking public sector employees, active in innovation policy and innovation management. Twenty key people will be admitted to the course each year and in addition to remote teaching, they will also study in Lund for four weeks. Through the course, the participants will increase their knowledge of innovation’s role in resilience and sustainable development, while they also build up a valuable network.
“We look forward to a two-way communication in which we teachers, who often only possess certain theoretical and historical knowledge, will teach about what we know, but also learn from the professional experts in innovation activities in African countries. It will be very exciting”, says Martin Andersson.
This is an excerpt of the full article.
