UK AND AFRICAN UNIVERSITIES FORM NEW PARTNERSHIP TO STRENGTHEN TIES ACROSS EUROPE AND AFRICA
Academics from the United Kingdom and Africa are collaborating to promote research and education on both continents.
The University of Nottingham and the Association of African Universities (AAU) have agreed to a five-year collaboration on new international studies and projects. The University of Nottingham will also house the AAU’s first European office and serve as its European representative institution.
The Association of African Universities (AAU), based in Accra, Ghana, represents over 400 African higher education institutions.
The two institutions have decided to collaborate in specific areas such as staff, research, student capacity building, quality assurance, resource mobilisation, ICT, and other infrastructure development. The agreement of collaboration was signed last week by Professor Robert Mokaya, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Global Engagement at the University of Nottingham, and Professor Olusola Bandele Oyewole, General Secretary of the AAU.
The University of Nottingham’s School of Education will host the collaboration, which will be overseen by Professor Juliet Thondhlana, who also holds the UNESCO Chair in International Education and Development.
Juliet Thondhlana, Professor of International Education and Development at the University of Nottingham, “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”, Professor Thondhlana added: “I look forward to seeing what we can achieve together as our collaboration grows further”
“Despite the AAU having several partnerships with institutions in Europe, the University of Nottingham has become a home and focal point to AAU member universities and its other networks for effective partnerships with European counterparts, particularly with the University of Nottingham itself that has emerged as a world-class, research-intensive university whose research transforms lives and shapes futures”
The University of Nottingham is ranked 18th in the UK by the QS World University rankings 2023, University of Nottingham is a founding member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universities.
