Researching innovation, policy and inclusive development in Africa.
Zamanzima Mazibuko-Makena is a Senior Researcher in the Knowledge Economy and Scientific Advancement Faculty at The Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (MISTRA). She specialises in innovation studies centring inclusive and contextually relevant research.
Her work focuses on how technological trends, systems of innovation, public policy in science, technology and innovation, and environmental challenges intersect with inclusive socioeconomic development in Africa.
Mazibuko-Makena is the editor of and contributing author to key MISTRA volumes including Leap 4.0: African Perspectives of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Why Innovations Live or Die: South Africa's Innovation System, and South Africa in an Age of Disasters: Managing risk and building competence.
Her research areas include the hydrogen economy, beneficiation of strategic minerals in South Africa, particularly platinum group metals, the low-carbon economy, the Just Energy Transition, and South Africa's critical minerals strategy.
She holds an MSc (Med) cum laude in pharmaceutical sciences and is currently a PhD candidate at Wits Business School, focusing on inclusive and endogenous pharmaceutical innovation in South Africa.