Building stronger pathways for African research talent.
Young Africans Research Academy (YARA) is a pan-African research institution developing the next generation of African researchers and building pathways through which their work can move from inquiry to application.
We identify promising researchers early, develop their capacity through rigorous training and sustained mentorship, and support them to pursue original questions grounded in African realities. We then create pathways for that work to move into publication, further research, policy, innovation and commercialisation.
Our foundational architecture
To identify promising African researchers early, develop their capacity to produce rigorous original research, and create pathways for their work to advance knowledge, inform policy and drive innovation.
To build an Africa where African researchers generate the knowledge, technologies and evidence that shape the continent’s future.
Our Core Values
Rigour
We ask precise questions, use sound methods and communicate only what the evidence can support.
Collaboration
We work across disciplines, institutions and sectors, recognising that consequential research is strengthened by different forms of expertise.
Impact
We pursue research with a clear understanding of what it could change, whether through new knowledge, policy, technology, institutional practice or commercial application.
African research should have greater influence over Africa’s future.
18% vs <2%
Africa is home to about 18% of the world’s population, yet produces less than 2% of global research output.
Behind those numbers are longstanding constraints in research investment, training, mentorship, infrastructure and access to the environments in which researchers can develop serious work.
But those figures do not capture the full challenge. They tell us something about how much research is produced, not what happens to the research that already exists.
Across the continent, African researchers are already generating important knowledge and evidence. The challenge is also whether that work has the pathways to influence what happens next: what policymakers decide, how institutions respond, what industries build, and which ideas have the opportunity to develop into technologies, products and new ventures.
For emerging researchers, the gap can begin early. Access to sustained mentorship, rigorous research training, data, research communities and opportunities to pursue original questions remains uneven. Without those conditions, promising researchers may never have the opportunity to develop their potential fully.
YARA exists to strengthen that pathway from the beginning.
We identify promising researchers early, support them to develop rigorous original work, and create routes through which that work can move into publication, further research, policy, innovation and commercialisation.
Publication is an important milestone in research, but it is not always its final destination.
Good research can become the basis for another discovery, a better policy, a different institutional decision, a new technology, a product or a practical solution.
YARA therefore treats what happens after the research as part of the research pathway itself. We want emerging African researchers not only to produce credible work, but to have stronger routes through which that work can reach the people and institutions positioned to use, test, extend or build on it.
For research with clear potential for further application, our ambition goes further. YARA intends to provide an environment in which selected projects can continue to develop within the institution, moving from research towards prototypes, programmes, technologies, products or ventures.
This allows promising research to keep developing with continued access to the expertise, partnerships and resources required for its next stage. YARA can support that progression from early research through to testing, application and commercial development, while keeping the research and what grows from it connected within the same institutional environment.