Bracing for change: making universities and firms partners for innovation in sub-Saharan Africa

Therefore, in this chapter, we aim to examine the nature of university-industry interaction in distinct African contexts. Such analysis can inform the bracing for the change that is required to build the partnerships between universities and firms that can deliver technological innovation. We conceive such partnerships to be characterized by an exchange of knowledge that results in tackling economic and social challenges, and consequently results in economic progress and poverty reduction. The chapter is based on a regional study of university-firm interactions in sub-Saharan Africa. The focus is three countries selected at appreciably different levels of development: Uganda, Nigeria, and South Africa. The study examined the constraints on, and the features of, identifiable cases of UILs, with the broad objective of ascertaining how to address the constraints and promote a more productive regime of UILs appropriate to African contexts.