College of Business and Economics | Annual Report 2021 50 in its global efforts to support innovation in the informal economy. In addition, the Chair continues to lead the thematic area Informal Sector Innovation under the Open African Innovation Research (Open AIR) network, which has produced a range of new research outputs. We have been fortunate to host five Queen Elizabeth Scholars (QES) contributing to this area of work with a specific focus on SDG5 (Gender Equality). As a result of this work, our QES scholars produced five publications in 2021. • Survey on “An Alternative Approach for Measuring Innovation”. The Trilateral Chair is collaborating with the Access to Knowledge for Development Center (A2K4D) at the School of Business at the American University in Cairo and the University of Strathmore in Kenya, to conduct parallel surveys in Egypt Kenya and South Africa, focusing on innovation practices of small and medium enterprises. This work is done with the support of the Open African Innovation Research (Open AIR) network. The survey will lead to around five publications in 2022. NATIONAL AND GLOBAL FOOTPRINT The Trilateral Chair is an international partnership, and we rely on our national and global networks to become a leading research unit on innovation and development in Africa. In 2021, the Chair collectively produced a total of 43 publications, including books, journal articles and book chapters. We developed formal agreements with the Human Sciences Research Council (SA), the British government’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, Utrecht University (the Netherlands), Strathmore University (Kenya), University of Cape Town (SA), the American University of Cairo (Egypt), among others. Prof Kraemer-Mbula was elected President of Global Network for Economics of Learning, Innovation, and Competence Building Systems (Globelics) and Prof Lema was elected VicePresident. In addition, Prof Kraemer-Mbula was appointed member of the International Advisory Group for the Future Research Assessment Programme, by UKRI. The Chair has also been involved in several international projects such as: • The Evaluation of the Newton Fund – in collaboration with Technopolis Ltd (UK). • Political Economy Analysis of Africa’s Sciences Granting Councils – in collaboration with the University College London, and the University of Rwanda. In September 2021, the Chair was awarded a project under the Innovation for African Universities (IAU) programme, which will run until September 2022. This programme follows a new model bringing together universities in the United Kingdom (UK) and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) to engage, interact and learn from one another with the aim of developing mutually beneficial partnerships that strengthen the capacity and capability of higher education systems in both locations. The project is entitled ‘Transforming Climate Innovation Ecosystems through Inclusive Transdisciplinarity (TransCIIT)’. The three Trilateral Chair partners (UJ, ACTS and the University of Sussex) started implementing the project in 2021, in collaboration with the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology (JOOUST) and the Kenya Climate Innovation Center. Prof Erika Kraemer-Mbula Chair: DST/NRF/Newton Fund Trilateral Research Chair in Transformative Innovation, the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) and Sustainable Development College of Business and Economics, University of Johannesburg Ms Lerato Mofokeng Ms Nabila Noor-Mahomed Wondia Mireille Yeo
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