Board of Directors

Board Member and Chair

Prof. Narciso Matos

Professor Narciso Matos is from September 2017 Vice Chancellor of the Polytechnic University in Mozambique, of which he was Pro Vice Chancellor from April 2015. He is former Executive Director of the Foundation for Community Development (2007-2014), Director of the International Development Program of the Carnegie Foundation of New York (2000-2007),  Secretary General of the Association of African Universities (1995-2000), Associate Professor and Rector of the University Eduardo Mondlane (1990-1995). He is currently the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Partnership for African Social and Governance Research, member of Mozambique´s National Council for Higher Education and Mozambique’s Academy of Sciences, and member of the Board of Directors of the University Foundation for the Development of Education. He holds a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Humboldt in Germany (1985), and a License in Chemistry from the University Eduardo Mondlane in Mozambique (1975).

Board Member and Chair of Human Resource & Compensation Committee

Prof. Gerald Ouma

Gerald Wangenge Ouma is a Professor of Higher Education and the Senior Director of Institutional Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation at the University of Pretoria (UP). In this role, he oversees institutional strategy, enrolment planning, institutional research and analytics, academic planning, quality assurance and enhancement, and monitoring and evaluation.  Prior to joining UP, he was an Associate Professor of Higher Education at the University of the Western Cape where he also coordinated the collaborative Higher Education Master’s in Africa Programme and a Doctoral Programme in Student Affairs.

Prof. Ouma has an extensive publications record, has participated in many higher education initiatives in Africa and internationally, and has served on various national panels on various aspects of higher education policy in South Africa. He is a member of University South Africa’s Funding Strategy Group, serves on the Advisory Committee of the Albert Luthuli Leadership Institute (UP) and previously served on the Board of the African Network for Internationalisation of Education (ANIE). Prof. Ouma was in the team that prepared the declaration and action plan from the first African Higher Education Summit on revitalising Higher Education for Africa’s Future that took place in March 2015 in Dakar, Senegal. He holds a PhD degree in Higher Education Studies from the University of Cape Town.

Board Member

Prof. Ama de-Graft Aikins

Ama de-Graft Aikins is a Professor of social psychology and a British Academy Global Professor at the Institute of Advanced Studies, University College London. She received her PhD in social psychology from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), completed postdoctoral training at the University of Cambridge and has held teaching and research positions at the LSE, University of Cambridge and University of Ghana. In 2015, she became the first female full professor of psychology at the University of Ghana, where she has a tenured position.

Prof. de-Graft Aikins’ research and publications focus on the social psychology of chronic illness, and on the psychosocial and structural drivers of Africa’s chronic non-communicable disease (NCD) burden. She also has a strong interest in arts-in-health, and the history of psychology in Africa and its intersections with critical theory and African Studies.  

She has led interdisciplinary NCD research projects based in Africa and Europe with colleagues from Universities of Ghana and Amsterdam, University College London and New York University. She has NCD/health policy experience with Ghanaian, West African and global health institutions including Ghana’s Ministry of Health, West Africa Health Organization (WAHO) and the World Health Organization (WHO).  She has supervised and mentored graduate students based in Ghanaian, European, American and Australian universities on social science and health systems aspects of Africa’s NCD burden.

She is currently principal investigator for Chronicity and Care in African Contexts, a project funded through her British Academy Global Professorship award. The project aims to explore how social responses to chronic conditions can shape public engagement and intervention models for chronic care in African communities on the continent and in the diaspora.

Prof. de-Graft Aikins has extensive university administrative experience, having served as the Director of the Centre for Social Policy Studies, Vice Dean of the School of Graduate Studies and Dean of International Programmes at the University of Ghana (UG). The latter role involved facilitating new academic partnerships with African, Asian, European, North American, and Latin American and Caribbean universities and representing UG abroad on internationalisation initiatives. In addition to PASGR, she serves on several boards and advisory groups, including the Independent Advisory Board of PEBL West Africa, and the Scientific Advisory Board of the World Pandemic Research Network.

She is a fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences and an international member of the US National Academy of Medicine.

Board Member

Prof. Lise Rakner

Lise Rakner is Professor of political science at the University of Bergen. Her research interests cover the fields of democratization and autocratization, with particular emphasis on human rights, electoral politics, political parties and processes of democratic backsliding. Rakner’s work also extends to political economy, with an emphasis on economic reforms, taxation, business associations, budget processes and aid effectiveness. She has conducted a number of governance assessment analyses for international agencies and donor governments. She holds an adjunct position at the Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI), Bergen. She is the PI of the research project Breaking BAD: Understanding Backlash Against Democracy in Africa funded by the Research Council of Norway (FRIHUMSAM), see https://www.democraticbacklash.com/. She is also PI of Autocratization Dynamics: Innovations in Research-Embedded Learning (INPART 2021-2025) and she heads the Zambia country study of Political determinants of sexual and reproductive health in Africa, funded by the RCN, Globvac). 

Board Member and Chair of Research and Programme Committee - RPC

Prof. Karuti Kanyinga

Director of the Institute for Development Studies (IDS), at the University of Nairobi