Africa is central to the global energy transition. Its population is growing faster than any other continent, its economies are expanding, and its subsurface holds critical resources for minerals, geothermal energy, carbon storage and natural gas. But a paper (published September 2025) in Geoenergy argues that one essential ingredient is still underdeveloped: locally led energy transition geoscience.
Based on a bibliometric analysis of research published between 2014 and 2024, the authors show that Africa remains under-represented in key areas such as carbon capture and storage, critical minerals, geothermal energy, machine learning and artificial intelligence. Even more importantly, relatively few Africa-focused studies are led by Africa-based researchers.
The paper makes a clear case: sustainable development of Africa’s resources will depend not only on investment and technology, but also on stronger research ecosystems, better support for African academics, more equitable international collaboration and funding models that build long-term local agency rather than dependency.
For geoscientists, this is a timely reminder that the energy transition is not just a question of where resources are located, but also who has the knowledge, tools and institutional capacity to study and manage them.
Read the full open-access paper in Geoenergy on EarthDoc: “Energy transition geoscience is an urgent research need for Africa”.
Image: 'Energy resources and projects in continental Africa' by: Matt.9.johnson / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.
