Bristol’s partners are in Africa (Gulu, UCT, Johannesburg), North America (Calgary, Victoria), Asia (Participatory Research in Asia) Europe (Leiden, Geneva) and Australia (Adelaide). EpiNet is led by Gulu University, coordinated by its Vice-Chancellor Professor George Ladaah Openjuru.
The agreement with UNESCO was signed by Bristol’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Evelyn Welch, and the network was launched on 5 May 2026.
The network provides UNESCO with a resource to support its existing work in this area. Its Futures of Education programme already recognises how essential it is to draw on all the world’s archives and knowledges to tackle the complex problems we are facing globally.
Bristol’s work on EpiNet will be led by its Perivoli Africa Research Centre (PARC). In both the nature of its international partnerships and in what it aims to achieve, the network will model the principles of the Africa Charter for transformative research collaborations. PARC’s Academic Director, Professor Leon Tikly, holds the UNESCO Chair in Transforming Knowledge and Research for Just and Sustainable Futures at Bristol. He said:
“The network is a great way to project the work around the Africa Charter within the UNESCO space, and also to involve colleagues in Bristol with epistemic justice and the knowledge commons.
It advances the University of Bristol’s research themes, including ‘social justice’ and our strategic partnerships on the continent of Africa and globally. It aligns with themes of epistemic justice and decolonisation advanced by the Centre for International and Comparative Research in Education (CIRE) in the SoE, the Reparative Futures programme, and the work of PARC in promoting African epistemic leadership and transformative partnership working with Africa.”
The network brings together people who have written extensively about integrating indigenous knowledge systems into the knowledge creation ecosystem. It draws on Africa Charter principles of collaborative working in a way that draws attention to and addresses pre-existing power imbalances. It will promote African knowledge systems and languages, develop theories that draw on African scholarship, and work with disadvantaged communities on the continent and elsewhere.
PARC will be encouraging colleagues to get involved in network activities, and hopes to organise a local EpiNet launch event in the autumn. Bristol will also be leading on the writing of a background paper later this year, and working towards the creation of a repository for materials around knowledge commons.
Professor George Openjuru, Vice-Chancellor of Gulu University, launches EpiNet