WACREN • Digital education strategy

Building Africa's distributed digital university ecosystem

Africa Digital Campus (ADC) connects institutions through trusted NREN connectivity and federated services for teaching, research, and open scholarship—while preserving institutional autonomy.

Originally launched as a pilot initiative, Africa Digital Campus has now transitioned into its full institutional program.

🎓
Education Platform
Digital First
Founded
2021
Industry
Higher Education
Model
Distributed + Federated
Trusted by universities across Africa

Overview

Africa Digital Campus (ADC) is the digital education strategy of WACREN, focused on translating regional digital infrastructure into practical capability for universities across Africa.

ADC connects higher-education institutions through National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) and shared, federated services that support teaching, research, and open scholarship. It is designed to strengthen collaboration, reduce duplication, and ensure African institutions retain ownership and control of their digital academic environment.

ADC advances a distributed model of digital education where institutions operate as autonomous local hubs—linked through trusted connectivity, federated identity, and open standards.

What ADC delivers

  • Federated infrastructure

    Federated infrastructure for digital learning, research, and collaboration.

  • Open scholarship services

    Repositories, OER, and Diamond Open Access publishing support.

  • Distributed campus models

    Distributed campus models that support scale without centralisation.

  • Trusted identity & access

    Trusted identity and access across institutions and borders.

  • Community-led governance

    Community-led governance aligned with digital sovereignty.

  • Open standards

    Open standards and interoperability to reduce duplication and lock-in.

From network infrastructure to academic practice

African universities increasingly rely on fragmented, externally governed, or costly-to-sustain digital systems. This weakens collaboration and limits the visibility and reuse of African scholarship.

Africa Digital Campus provides a shared digital foundation that enables institutions to collaborate while remaining independent. By federating connectivity, identity, learning platforms, and open scholarship services, ADC enables universities to focus on their academic mission while WACREN provides the trusted regional backbone.

Flagship demonstrator

NOUN–WACREN Distributed Campus

ADC is implemented through practical pilots and demonstrators. A flagship example is the NOUN–WACREN Distributed Campus with the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN)—showing how federated infrastructure can support open learning, open science, and publishing within a single, distributed institutional framework.

Read the WACREN update →

Community & resources