Academic-Business Partnerships for SDGs: The Fourth Industrial Revolution in Africa
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Academic-Business Partnerships for SDGs: The Fourth Industrial Revolution in Africa Joel Onyango1,3 and Nora Ndege2 1 Climate Resilient Economies, African Centre for Technology Studies, Nairobi, Kenya 2 Climate Resilient Economies, African Centre for Technology Studies, Nairobi, Kenya 3 African Researchers Consortium, Nairobi, Kenya
Synonyms Academic-to-business partnerships; Fourth industrial revolution; Industrial growth in Africa; Research and enterprises; Technology revolution
Definition The fourth industrial revolution (4IR) has received attention in various fields. The technological breakthrough associated with this revolution is critical for sustainability (Balatsky 2019). It is framed as a pending transition driven by technological innovations (Singh 2019) including “the fusion of technologies ranging from a variety of digital technologies to new processes like artificial intelligence and synthetic biology” (Li et al. 2017; OECD 2016).
Introduction Context of the Chapter The fourth industrial revolution is envisioned to impart all aspects of life, sectoral and global (Singh 2019; Balatsky 2019). Both private and public institutions expect higher productivity, economic opportunities, and the future of work. However, it has received criticism from various scholars like Pelline et al. (2019) who argue that 4IR could inhibit or enable the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Others argue of its exclusionary potential (Rose and Chilvers 2018) reinforcing present injustices and environmental impacts associated with industrial production systems. Despite these counterarguments, it might be possible for the prioritization of the technological advancements in SDGs (Pellini et al. 2019). A detailed road map for achieving industrial 4.0 is still missing (Liao et al. 2017). Even so, there is a need to enhance the convergence of digital, physical, and biological drivers of the 4IR to minimize its negative effects through various partnerships and collaboration. The 4IR being a highly interdisciplinary topic (involving a wide set of knowledge domains (e.g., automatic controls, robotics, sensors, computer science, and management) and actors (e.g., researchers, companies, technology providers, policy makers, schools)) requires that partnerships are formed and supported including a further investigation as to how they are pursued for sustainability. To
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 W. Leal Filho et al. (eds.), Partnerships for the Goals, Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71067-9_94-1
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Academic-Business Partnerships for SDGs: The Fourth Industrial Revolution in Africa
this end, there is growing momentum for various partnership approaches between academic, policy, and industry to accelerate social, environmental, and economic progress (Maynard 2015) to advance 4IR. These partnerships are understood differently in various contexts (Fransman and Newman 2019; D’Este et al. 2013). They range from various collaborative research to contract rese
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