Suppose you count only people who were citizens of an African state at the time they received the Nobel Prize. In that case, the continent has just one laureate in the natural sciences and medicine: Ahmed H Zewail of Egypt, awarded the 1999 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for founding femtochemistry. The Nobel Foundation’s dossier notes Zewail’s Egyptian nationality (alongside a later US affiliation) at the time of the award.
That strict rule excludes a long list of African-born scientists who changed the world but held non-African citizenship when the prize was conferred.
Among the most cited are Max Theiler (born in Pretoria, physiology or medicine, 1951, awarded for the yellow-fever vaccine while at the Rockefeller Foundation in New York); Allan M Cormack (born in South Africa, physiology or medicine, 1979, by then a naturalised US citizen at Tufts); Aaron Klug (chemistry, 1982, UK); Sydney Brenner (physiology or medicine, 2002, UK-Singapore); and Michael Levitt (chemistry, 2013, by then long based in the US and Israel). Their Nobel records and biographies make the citizenship and institutional affiliations explicit.
Why insist on this narrow definition? Because it is a system test. Citizenship at the moment of global recognition tends to align with the research ecosystem that sustained the prize-winning work – the doctoral pipeline, the instruments and technicians, the long-horizon grants, the regulatory and administrative scaffolding. If a strict count leaves Africa with one name, the mirror is not unkind to talent; it is unsparing about our systems.
How we got here
A century of talent export. The pattern is familiar: birth or early education in Africa, decisive training and platform-building elsewhere, and citizenship aligned to where the science matured. That trajectory isn’t a mystery. It is what you get when early-career scientists cannot find stable funding, equipment uptime, and supervisory depth at home.
Thin, volatile research investment. The African Union’s longstanding target is to raise gross domestic expenditure on research and development (GERD) to 1% of GDP. In practice, the continent has averaged approximately 0.5% – barely a quarter of the OECD [Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development] norm – and progress has been uneven, according to data from the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa or UNECA. Systems that mint Nobels routinely spend far more and, crucially, spend predictably over many years.
Gaps in the ‘methods layer’. Nobel-level science relies on expensive but mundane infrastructure, including metrology labs, regional microscopy and imaging cores, animal and clinical facilities, clean rooms, and teams of professional technicians who keep them operational. Where those public goods are missing, ideas migrate to where rigs, standards, and cohorts already exist.
Short funding cycles and output counting. Two- or three-year grants and narrow ‘publication points’ policies push teams towards sliceable projects rather than shared datasets, standards and toolchains – the compounding assets from which breakthroughs (and nominations) grow.
Visibility and nomination pipelines. Nobel nominations are sealed for 50 years, but any senior academic knows that elite networks matter. Suppose African principal investigators (PIs) spend their best hours navigating procurement or visa queues instead of serving on global committees and consortia. In that case, their students’ work is less likely to be seen, nominated and defended.
None of this diminishes the African-born scientists above; it locates the lever. The continent’s researchers are competitive when ecosystems let them be. South Africa’s own data show that, when GERD ticks up and business research and development, or R&D, deepens, outputs and collaborations follow – though levels still lag those of systems that compound excellence over decades.
How to change the trajectory in a decade
1) Make decade-long bets, reviewed hard. Create ring-fenced 10-year grants for fundamental and translational science, with tough stage-gates at years three and seven. Judge success by capability built – open datasets with DOIs [digital object identifiers] and uncertainty bounds, validated methods and code, contributions to national or ISO [International Organization for Standardization] standards, audited prototype lineages – alongside papers. Short cycles produce publishable slices; long arcs produce platforms that keep talent (and institutional credit) at home.
2) Fund the ‘methods layer’ as shared infrastructure. Treat regional facilities for microscopy, high-field imaging, clean-room fabrication, metrology, and animal/clinical cores like highways: plan at a continental scale, fund upfront, maintain centrally, and guarantee equitable access across borders. Create technical career tracks for instrument scientists and lab engineers so the uptime that world-class science needs is someone’s day job, not a PI’s after-hours hope.
3) Tie public money to open, reusable science. Require publicly funded projects to publish data and protocols rapidly (with privacy safeguards), register material cards for simulations, and deposit analysis and calibration scripts. The point is not ideology; it is compounding. Openness raises quality, accelerates replication, and lets more teams build on each other’s shoulders – the way every prize-winning field actually advances. (Global evidence from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics consistently links transparent, reusable outputs with higher impact over time.)
4) Build two-home careers for the diaspora. Make it normal for top African-born scientists to hold co-appointments in an African lab and a G7 lab. Streamline visas and customs for equipment, and recognise foreign grants. Offer duty-free scientific imports tied to shared facilities. Fund exchange pipelines to facilitate the circulation of students and postdocs. When identity and infrastructure align, citizenship at award time is more likely to be African.
5) Professionalise the nomination muscle. Give national academies and research councils the remit (and administration support) to identify and prepare nominations for major prizes years in advance. This is not gaming the system; it is what mature systems do – ensure excellent work is visible, cross-reviewed, and championed.
6) Stabilise PI time. Fund proper grants offices, research accountants, and instrument technicians so PIs can do what only they can do: think, mentor, and take the next risky step. In too many places, the continent’s best minds spend outsized time on procurement loops, customs clearances, and human resources paperwork.
7) Anchor excellence in the missions Africa can lead. Prizes follow breakthroughs; breakthroughs follow purpose. Back multi-year, open, cross-border missions where Africa has an edge and urgency: pathogen genomics and epidemic intelligence; climate-resilient agriculture; soft-tissue biomechanics and equitable medical-device safety; microgrids and energy storage for heat-stressed cities. When missions are clear, coalitions form – and long-term funding becomes easier to defend.
A note on fairness and pride
Some readers will prefer broader counts that celebrate African-born laureates, regardless of citizenship. That’s a legitimate editorial choice; it honours roots. This piece deliberately takes the strict view to illuminate where structures – not talent – decide where credit lands.
Under that view, the count of one (Zewail) should sting, then motivate. It tells us exactly where to work: predictable investment, shared infrastructures, open methods, mobility that flows both ways, and professional nomination pipelines.
What success would look like by 2035
If African governments lift GERD towards 1% of GDP, establish five to seven shared continental facilities with guaranteed uptime, implement decade-long, capability-audited grants, and normalise diaspora co-appointments, the next generation of prize-level work will mature on the continent – and the passports at award time will reflect it.
The talent is already here; the diaspora is keen to co-invest with time and labs; and the geopolitics of regionalised science and manufacturing are finally a tailwind, not a headwind. Today’s stark outcome is not inevitable. It is a policy choice we can reverse.
Professor Fulufhelo Nemavhola is the Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research, Innovation and Engagement at the Durban University of Technology in South Africa. He writes in his personal capacity.
Pictured: Professor Fulufhelo Nemavhola, Depuy Vice-Chancellor: Research, Innovation and Engagement at DUT.
Professor Fulufhelo Nemavhola
Source: University World News
