Dr Nico Elema is currently the Director of the Centre for Collaboration in Africa at SU International. His career spans approximately 35 years from where it began in the private sector in the early 1990s in South Africa and East Africa, he built a foundation in strategy, administration, partnership development and programme development within the integrated information systems sector. Since joining Stellenbosch University in 2011, he has applied these same capabilities in the higher education sector, where his work has centred on the internationalisation of higher education across Africa in collaboration with global partners.

As Director of the CCA, he leads a portfolio that encompasses bilateral and multilateral African university partnerships, intra-Africa student and staff mobility programmes, and the secretariats of two continental thematic research and capacity development networks, and broader support to Faculty internationalisation initiatives. This work is undertaken within the global higher education and science and technology sector, in partnership with various global and African intergovernmental agencies and partners. 

His work is informed by a sustained engagement with African Union policy frameworks, notably Agenda 2063, and by direct collaboration with organs of the African Union, AUDA-NEPAD, the European Commission, UNESCO, and the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, among others.

His scholarly contributions are situated in the fields of higher education internationalisation, Science and Technology Studies and research impact assessment. He completed an MBA in 2006 and a PhD in Science and Technology Studies in 2019.