Page 71 - AERC Strategic Plan 2 July2020

THE AERC 2020–2025 STRATEGIC PLAN

be expected to be achieved within a two-to-four-year period. They do not need to be
achieved in a linear fashion but demonstrable progress towards them must be evident
within two years. The ME system has been designed to track progress against these
intermediate outcomes.

There are four intermediate outcomes of interest within this outcome pathway:

1.4. Improved synergy between collaborative and thematic research;

1.5. Improved incentives for thematic and collaborative research;

1.6. Improvements in quality and delivery of university-level economic curriculum; and

1.7. Improved due diligence and quality assurance by AERC.

Improved synergy between collaborative and thematic research is central to improving
the quality of research and the consistent generation of high-quality research. At
present, there is somewhat of a disjunction between these two important programmes.
Participants in thematic research are relatively junior early-career researchers who are
provided with mentorship in structured biannual sessions together with some ongoing
mentorship. There is a need to consistently link these researchers with a cadre of more
senior, cutting-edge researchers who can quality-assure and mentor the more junior
researchers. This will not only ensure that the quality of early-career researchers’ outputs
be improved, but social capital will be built between researchers, thus enabling the
establishment of a productive network of African economists.

In order to create these synergies, there is a need to improve the incentives for such
synergies to be realised in the first instance. The range of such incentives include
financial incentives, career-oriented incentives, mentoring incentives, quality incentives,
and academic incentives (e.g. publications, etc.). There is an assumption that improving
incentives (both for students and senior academics) will generate the type of synergistic
behaviour sought. The development of incentives needs to be carefully explored and
aligned to the needs and requirements of senior (and junior) African academics. Senior
and junior academics are subject to a range of pressures. These include time pressure,
financial stress, and socio-cultural expectations, etc., and these need to be carefully
explored and tested as the approach to incentive development evolves. The risk is that a
simplistic approach to incentive development may restrict participation to a select few.

In order to ensure that consistent, high-quality research is generated and high-quality
graduate students produced, African universities need to improve the quality and
delivery of their economic policy-related curricula. There is a wide range of variability in
the quality and delivery of economic policy-related university curricula, and this disparity
needs to be addressed if a consistent supply of high-quality economics graduates is to be
ensured across Africa. The AERC has a vital role to play in this regard. The AERC will use its
recognised leadership in economic policy-related research and training to develop quality

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