From 15 to 19 September 2025, IIASA hosted a Symposium on Human Capital for Sustainable Development – A Focus on Africa. Supported by the Yidan Prize project funds, the event brought together researchers, postdoctoral fellows, and PhD students from Africa and Europe to advance collaboration on education, demography, and sustainable development.
The event marked the kick-off of the Yidan Prize–supported project in collaboration with the University of Cape Town’s Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit (SALDRU) focused on advancing human capital research and capacity building in Africa.
The initiative is led by Wolfgang Lutz, Yidan Prize Laureate and IIASA Distinguished Emeritus Research Scholar, and builds on IIASA’s long-standing expertise in demographic modeling and its leadership in multidimensional population research, and the work of the Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital (a collaboration between IIASA, the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and the University of Vienna). The project emphasizes education as a transformative driver of human capital formation, resilience, and long-term development.
Over five days of plenary discussions, thematic workshops, and planning sessions, participants examined new data initiatives, modeling approaches, and research priorities. Key themes included measuring and projecting human capital, integrating education and health in population analysis, and developing innovative tools for understanding demographic change. The symposium also provided a platform for early-career researchers to engage in knowledge exchange, receive mentoring, and contribute to shaping future research directions.
Among the main outcomes were plans to strengthen regional research networks and enhance analytical capacity through targeted training and joint supervision of young scholars. The discussions emphasized the importance of long-term partnerships to connect demographic science with policy and practice. By linking education, labor, and health dimensions within a unified analytical framework, the initiative aims to provide robust evidence for policymaking and support sustainable human capital development across Africa.
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