Abstract
This master’s thesis investigates the extent to which a center of excellence (CoE) composed of institutes from three sub-Saharan African universities achieves impact on its field and area of focus, climate and development, and how the center’s structure enables impact. To date, there is little research observing the relationship between the organizational structures and impacts of centers of excellence in sub-Saharan Africa, and how these centers can contribute to research development and societal challenges in local, national, and international communities. The research questions address how the structure of one CoE enables the impacts the center has achieved thus far, operationalizing the CoE as an interorganizational network and operationalizing two categories of impact, impact on the academic field of climate and development, and impact on society. The present study is a qualitative case study of the African Research Universities Alliance Centre of Excellence in Climate and Development (ARUA-CD) conducted through thematic analysis of documents and semi-structured interviews with researchers and staff affiliated with the center. The main findings related to the structure of the center indicate that the ARUA-CD is an interorganizational network comprised of structural elements including the three participating university institutes, “flat” governance, loose structure, shared goals, and trust and equity between affiliates. Structural challenges to achieving impact are also identified, namely in funding, staff capacity, communication streams, and limitations to the three participating institutes operating in different university structures. Results pertaining to the ARUA-CD’s impacts emphasize direct impacts on the academic field of climate and development research through networking, capacity building, inter- and transdisciplinary research, and indirect societal impacts in the social and political realms. The main structural features supporting the impacts are the non-hierarchal decision-making and “participatory leadership” (ARUA-CD, Fekadu et al., 2021), which encourage trust and equity among affiliates, increasing commitment and networking to form collaborations key for generating impacts on the field and on society. This study contributes to the limited literature on centers of excellence in sub-Saharan Africa and poses the ARUA-CD as a possible model for achieving impact in complex societal problems. Additionally, the thesis presents a possible approach to conceptualizing centers of excellence as interorganizational networks.