A new European office for the Association of African Universities, which will bring together academics in the UK and Africa to advance education and research collaboration across the two continents, has been officially opened at the University of Nottingham.
The new office will be hosted by the university's School of Education on its Jubilee Campus and is part of a wider five-year agreement between the two organisations that will promote partnerships on new international studies and projects.
At an event on Wednesday 6 March, the new office was launched by the University of Nottingham's Vice-Chancellor, Professor Shearer West and the President of the AAU Professor Bakri Osman Saeed and Secretary-General of the AAU, Professor Olusola Bandele Oyewole.
Professor West said: "The University of Nottingham and our School of Education are proud to host the Association of African Universities Europe Regional Office, which is set to become a critical part of the future discourse between higher education institutions across Africa and Europe."
The office will serve as a conduit for continental collaboration across research, advocacy, and policy development for years to come, and the connections made between members of our global higher education community will empower us to address collectively the major global challenges of our time.
Professor Osman Saeed said: "We consider this a historic occasion for our organisation because we believe that this international collaboration is absolutely critical for improving the skills and capabilities of current and future workforce in Africa and in Europe as well."
Professor Oyewole said: "The Association of African Universities represents over 430 universities in Africa and the setting up of the office in the University of Nottingham is a way of connecting universities in Europe to universities in Africa. I look at this collaboration as a strategy for development through various forms, such as research partnerships, student exchange and mobility programmes. It will promote knowledge sharing between the two continents and also enhance our research capabilities in Africa and across Europe. "
The Association of African Universities (AAU), headquartered in Accra, Ghana, represents more than 430 higher education institutions across Africa.
The two institutions have agreed to collaborate in specific areas such as building capacity of staff, researchers and students, as well as in pivotal areas as quality assurance, resource mobilisation, ICT and other infrastructural development.
The new office will be under the leadership of Professor Juliet Thondhlana in the university's School of Education, who is also the UNESCO Chair in International Education and Development.
Equitable partnerships and international collaboration
Professor Thondhlana said: "International collaboration is essential to teaching and research. The university is developing a new strategy for engaging with partners in Africa, at the core of which is developing equitable partnerships with collaborators, so we are delighted to be partnering with the AAU to advance research and innovation across our continents. I look forward to seeing what we can achieve together as our collaboration grows further."
Guests who attended the launch event – both in person and remotely – were able to join a panel session on University Collaborations between Europe and Africa: Strengthening Research and Teaching Excellence and a further session on Transformative Partnerships: Advancing the Research Ecosystem between African and European Higher Education Sectors, which featured representatives from Association of Commonwealth Universities Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, as well as the AAU and University of Nottingham.
Other sessions outlined the aims and objectives of the new office and what it can offer to member universities and its current and emerging projects, which include data ethics in education, research writing workshops, mapping the landscape of AI design and use in higher education in Africa and capacity building/executive education with African institutions. Attendees also had the opportunity to find out more about Africa-focused research which is currently being carried out at Nottingham.
