Online Reporter
Trust Freddy
Herald Correspondent
Higher and tertiary education institutions have been challenged to spearhead Zimbabwe’s mineral beneficiation drive by developing local value-addition technologies following the Government’s recent ban on raw mineral and lithium concentrate exports.
The call was made by Acting Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development Kazembe Kazembe during the official opening of the University of Zimbabwe 2026 Research Innovation and Industrialisation Week in Harare recently.
The six-day exhibition, which ran from last Monday to Saturday under the theme “Advancing Transdisciplinarity for Impact Competitiveness of Zimbabwe’s Critical Value Chains”, brought together students, researchers, industry players and policymakers to showcase innovation-driven industrial solutions.
Minister Kazembe said the Government’s decision to ban the export of raw minerals was intended to stimulate local industrialisation and encourage universities to play a direct role in developing beneficiation technologies for the mining sector.
“The recent ban by the Government of Zimbabwe on the exportation of raw minerals and lithium concentrate in favour of local value addition presents an opportunity for innovative solutions in mining and mineral beneficiation,” he said.
“The University of Zimbabwe has shown potential to advance this narrative through a range of mining and mineral innovations, reflecting Zimbabwe’s potential to transition from a ‘dig and ship-out’ mining model to a high-value, knowledge-driven economy.”
As part of efforts to anchor the country’s beneficiation agenda, Government has mandated the University of Zimbabwe to establish a National Minerals Research Centre to lead research into the local processing of strategic minerals such as lithium, uranium and rare earth elements.
The directive follows Zimbabwe’s landmark shipment last month of Africa’s first consignment of lithium sulphate from a US$400 million processing plant, barely two months after Government banned the export of lithium concentrates.
The development marked a major milestone in the country’s push towards mineral value addition.
Minister Kazembe said Zimbabwe’s competitiveness would depend on its ability to integrate innovation, research and industrial production rather than relying solely on the extraction of raw resources.
“Zimbabwe possesses immense potential within its critical value chains — agriculture, mining, energy, manufacturing, health, tourism and digital technologies,” he said.
“However, competitiveness in the 21st Century will not be determined solely by natural resources. Nations now compete through innovation ecosystems, knowledge integration and the ability to convert research into societal value because knowledge without application becomes abstraction.
“Therefore, I challenge you to ensure that research does not remain confined within journals and conference proceedings but becomes embedded within communities, industries and policy systems.”
Higher Education Permanent Secretary Professor Fanuel Tagwira urged students and researchers to pursue innovative projects, saying Government had availed funding to support viable start-ups across universities and polytechnics.
“We, as a ministry, are now funding a number of start-ups, not just in one university, but across all institutions, including polytechnics, and these are not going to be the last ones to be funded,” said Prof Tagwira.
“We also now have a department within the ministry, a department of business development, which is monitoring these start-ups to make sure they are well equipped and that proper management systems are being put in place.”
He said the ministry was also engaging the private sector to help support and commercialise innovations emerging from tertiary institutions.
UZ Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Mapfumo said the research week reflected the institution’s commitment to supporting the country’s economic transformation agenda under the National Development Strategy 2 and Vision 2030.
“This is more than just reciting the vision,” said Prof Mapfumo.
“We are trying to do that practically — to turn our academic capabilities towards creating value to contribute to those national blueprints.”
During the exhibition, the university unveiled a range of locally developed industrial prototypes, including infrastructure-security drones and solar-powered cold-chain transit systems developed by nearly 700 final-year students and academic researchers.
