Africa Week is the University of Pretoria’s (UP) biennial African science leadership summit hosted by the Future Africa platform. The 2025 event, organised with the support of the National Research Foundation of South Africa (NRF) and the Department of Science, Technology, and Innovation (DSTI), will be held from 25 to 30 May 2025 and will convene prominent African and global science leaders and stakeholders for a series of high-level discussions under the theme ‘Global Security, Global Africa’. 

The purpose of Africa Week 2025 is to reframe and broaden global security beyond its militarist confines, to uncover its multiple – hidden and overt – meanings at present and how they manifest at all levels of society. The summit aims to reimagine global security frameworks, and to place Africa’s position and role within global security complexes. While the call to silence the guns cannot be overlooked, there is an urgent need to fully understand a wide range of global security threats posed by pandemics, digital technologies, ongoing environmental and human degradation, climate change, economic shocks, geo-politics and food security vulnerabilities.

Africa Week 2025 will provide a safe and neutral space for deliberation on several key global security questions from an African perspective, including:

• What are the most pressing security threats facing the world today?
• What are the limitations of current governance and policy frameworks in ensuring global security?
• Why are scientists increasingly under threat, and what can be done to address this?
• What should Africa’s primary security concerns be, and how should they be articulated?
• How can Africa contribute meaningfully to global security frameworks?

The main summit will be held from 25 to 27 May and will feature a programme of high-level plenary sessions and the Future Africa Global Lecture. This will be followed by a series of strategic side events from 28 to 30 May to further explore specific topics and strengthen partnerships.  Africa Week 2025 will bring together leaders from higher education institutions across Africa and the world and stakeholders from academia, government, business, civil society, and the media.

For further enquiries, please contact the Future Africa team at [email protected]