adminDr Bongani Ngwenya
Preamble:
In 2012 I raised a question during the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC) Annual Congress in Victoria Falls on the role of the universities in the country’s economic development, apart from the country’s universities pushing through thousands of graduates into the labour market.
There is no doubt that holding other things equal our universities are producing high calibre of labour that easily fits in any labour market in the world without any difficulties at all. Above all, in most of these countries Zimbabweans occupy very senior positions, especially in the areas of commerce, engineering, medical fraternity and education, just to mention a few areas.
It is so ironic that in countries such as South Africa and many more, Zimbabweans drive the economic development trajectories as they easily find employment in top decision making positions of influence. This is the same labour capital that is educated, trained and developed by the Zimbabwean universities.
When I attended the ZNCC Annual Congress in question it became clear to me that the Government lacked a clear policy on university-industry collaboration. The theme of that congress was centred on public-private-partnerships, famously known as the (PPP) or the triple Ps.
I sat in that congress as one of the delegates representing the Bulawayo Chapter of the ZNCC, and then in one of the plenary sessions I asked this patient question, which I still ask even today — what is the role of our universities in the economic development of the country? Where do our universities fit in the triple Ps initiative? My experience with the South African universities is that the South African universities play a very critical and important role in the development of the South African economy.
For example, in South Africa and in many other countries, industry-university collaboration has substantially increased the propensity of firms to introduce new products through technological innovation and also in accumulated patents for both firms and the collaborating universities. The argument is that in South Africa and in other countries there are clear Government university-industry collaboration policies.
These policies drive the collaboration of the countries’ universities with the countries’ industries at national levels. The Governments keep a close monitoring of the performance of the collaboration initiatives and practices.
It is very easy for the collaboration and partnerships to attract external and internal private funding, especially for research and development because of the availability or on the strength of the Government policy that also works as a guarantee for the accountability of the research and development donor funds.
Our universities do not have the potential to attract funding for research and development in the absence of clear Government policy on industry-university collaboration. Our education system is lacking in this regard. Like I commented some time ago, the business of leaving things to each university to forge its own collaboration and partnership arrangements with the industry without any form of legal or policy instrument at Government level to enforce and monitor the practices does not work.
The potential lessons that Zimbabwe as a new political economy can learn from university-industry collaboration practices: The practice of collaboration between universities and industry in the Zimbabwe’s new political economy can be more than just being critical for labour skills development (education and training), but for the generation, development, acquisition, and adoption of new trends in knowledge (innovation and technology transfer), and the promotion of entrepreneurship for the youth in particular (start-ups and spin-offs).
For the countries that engage in the practice, the benefits of university-industry linkages are wide and far-reaching: they could help co-ordinate research and development agendas and avoid duplications, stimulate additional private sector research and development investment (additionally effect) especially for the sake of the revival and development of new industries, and exploit synergies and complementarities of scientific and technological capabilities.
Zimbabwe still lags far behind in terms of scientific and technological capabilities, despite having universities such as the National University of Science and Technology (Nust) and other supposedly science and technology biased universities in the country. University-industry collaboration can also expand the relevance of research carried out in our universities and other public institutions, foster the commercialisation (patenting) of public research and development outcomes, and increase the mobility of labour between public and private sectors.
The benefits of university-industry collaboration are immense in the economic development of both developed and developing countries that practice the collaboration strategy. Collaboration between academia and industry in the new political economy can be an increasingly critical component of efficient national innovation systems that the country’s industry needs right now for industry value addition and production of high-tech products.
It is useful for the new dispensation to examine the experiences of other countries, such as our neighbouring South Africa, other developing counties and developed countries as well to better understand the different types of university-industry collaboration, motivations to form these agreements and manage the barriers to co-operation, as well as the role of public policy in fostering such linkages. Most of the developing countries, Zimbabwe included, face even greater barriers to such alliances between their industries and universities because of lack of Government or public policies that drive the success of such alliances.
This article is calling for a consented approach by the Government to craft policies that promote university-industry collaboration for the purposes of re-industrialisation. In South Africa for example universities act as an important driver of economic development and catching-up through their role in education and technology absorption, adaptation, and diffusion.
Beyond the teaching-research-entrepreneurial taxonomy, this article advocates for shifting the focus toward making our universities, developmental universities which collaborate with external agents (including firms), not necessarily with a focus on commercialisation and profit-making but rather with the broader purpose of contributing to the social and economic development of the country in the new political economy and dispensation.
The advocated Government policy on university-industry collaboration would ensure successful industry-university collaboration needs that support the missions and motivations of each partner. For universities for example, typical motivations to collaborate with industry would include the improvement of teaching, access to funding, reputation enhancement (high rankings), and access to empirical data from industry.
For firms for example, the motivations to collaborate with universities may include gaining access to complementary technological knowledge (including patents and tacit knowledge), tapping into a pool of skilled workers, providing training to existing or future employees, gaining access to the university’s facilities and equipment, gaining access to public funding and incentives; firms may also seek to reduce risks by sharing the costs of research and development and to influence the overall teaching and research agenda of universities in the country.
In conclusion, all these benefits can only accrue to both the country’s industry and universities and the economy as a whole if there is motivational support from the Government through a clear industry-university collaboration government or national policy that is lacking at the moment.
Dr Bongani Ngwenya is based at the University of KwaZulu-Natal as a Post-doctoral Research Fellow and can be contacted on [email protected]
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