UDSN’s 2031 Blueprint: Five Axes, 64 Activities

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Home（https://congosentinel.com/） Society & Culture（https://congosentinel.com/category/society-culture/） UDSN’s 2031 Blueprint: Five Axes, 64 Activities

Society & Culture（https://congosentinel.com/category/society-culture/）

UDSN’s 2031 Blueprint: Five Axes, 64 Activities

by Samuel Mudjinda（https://congosentinel.com/writer/samuel_mudjinda/） October 23, 2026

written by Samuel Mudjinda（https://congosentinel.com/writer/samuel_mudjinda/）

October 23, 2026

5

A Five-Year Compass for Université Denis-Sassou-N’Guesso

At the end of a session devoted to setting priorities, held in Kintélé on 21 October, the leadership of Université Denis-Sassou-N’Guesso (UDSN) declared itself satisfied. Raoul Ominga, who chairs the steering committee of the institution’s strategic development plan (PSD) for 2027-2031, and Professor Ange Antoine Abéna, president of the university, both came away from the exercise convinced that the plan now had a definite shape.

The document is not, strictly speaking, a programme of works. It sets out the university’s broad orientations and is meant to serve as the foundation on which more detailed operational plans will be drawn up. Its authors conceived it against a backdrop of profound transformation and considerable uncertainty, whether political, economic or technological, and present it as a point of reference for the opportunities and challenges UDSN will encounter in the coming years.

How the Strategy Was Built

The method, proposed by the university’s president, rested on an approach described as rigorous, inclusive and forward-looking, combined with what was termed critical lucidity and an analysis of the institution’s internal and external environment. The planners, in other words, were asked to examine both the university itself and the world in which it operates before committing to a course.

According to Raoul Ominga, the work made it possible to formulate realistic development hypotheses, to identify clear strategic poles and to establish the results to be achieved. The vision that emerged is, in his account, ambitious yet realistic and oriented towards the future, with student success, innovation and community engagement at its core. The well-being and personal fulfilment of the university’s staff and of the wider community are likewise placed at the heart of the plan.

Five Axes, Nineteen Actions, Sixty-Four Activities

The architecture of the PSD is notably granular. “We have five strategic axes, nineteen actions and sixty-four activities to carry out. The content is dense,” Raoul Ominga said. He added that the objectives would be pursued through the heads of the university’s establishments and its central directors, with the aim of meeting short-, medium- and long-term targets over the five-year period.

The first axis concerns academic excellence, qualifying training and professional integration. The second covers research, innovation and the valorisation of scientific work, together with the economic profitability of UDSN itself. The third addresses governance, human resources and institutional quality. The fourth is devoted to digital transformation and sustainable infrastructure. The fifth and final axis deals with partnership and with the university’s contribution to the socio-economic development of the country and the sub-region, as well as to inclusion and development.

Read together, the axes sketch an institution that wishes to be judged not only on its teaching but also on its research, on the professional prospects of its students and on its place in national and regional development. The pairing, within the second axis, of scientific valorisation with the university’s economic profitability is perhaps the most telling choice, since it ties the research mission explicitly to economic returns.

The Question of Means

Ambition, however, has a cost, and the president of UDSN did not sidestep the issue. Explaining the spirit of the exercise, Professor Abéna spoke of the need for “fertile imagination” in order “to properly organise, rank and prioritise the activities to be carried out, so that in 2031 we are no longer talking about 54% execution for 17% funding.”

The remark is brief but revealing. It places the relationship between what is accomplished and what is financed at the centre of the university’s concerns, and it presents prioritisation as the answer to that tension.