Rethinking global science relations
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Since the launch of the EU’s Global Approach in 2021, The Guild has been active in focusing on one of the EU’s key priorities: developing a new approach to R&I collaboration with Africa.
ARUA and The Guild rectors meet in Cape Town
With the development of a joint AU-EU Innovation Agenda, The Guild and ARUA Presidents and Vice-Chancellors met at the University of Cape Town in South Africa in November to discuss the role of universities in the renewed Europe–Africa partnership. Agreeing on the need to strengthen in the long term the research capacities of African universities to boost the excellence and relevance of global science production, The Guild and ARUA rectors decided to work towards the development of joint Clusters of Excellence.
These new models of university partnerships will involve African and European universities around a joint research challenge in Public Health, Green Transition, Innovation and Technology, and Capacities for Science. Clusters of Excellence will pool resources of individual universities to produce ground-breaking knowledge for the benefit of Africa and Europe’s sustainable growth and train the next generation of excellent scientists able to engage meaningfully with tomorrow’s challenges.
Towards Clusters of Research Excellence
Building on three years of collaboration with ARUA, 2022–2023 saw our universities strengthen their relations at both the leadership and the academic levels. We organised another online information session on funding opportunities for our researchers, this time dedicated to the MSCA Doctoral Networks scheme, where we heard experiences of successful applicants in African–European consortia. At the same time, The Guild and ARUA Vice-Presidents and Academics met regularly in winter and spring to discuss opportunities and address the obstacles to closer collaboration between our universities. This work has served the development of proposals for Clusters of Excellence.
Universities as gateways between Africa and Europe
To support the continued development of our collaboration with African universities, we have remained active at the policy level. We participated in a stakeholder consultation workshop organised by the European Commission and the African Union Commission in Nairobi in November, to present our Clusters of Excellence project and reflect with other research and innovation actors on the road ahead to implement the AU–EU Innovation Agenda. As part of our ERA work, we also worked with the European Commission and EU member states to develop a coordinated approach to research and innovation cooperation with Africa (‘Team Europe’). Last but not least, together with other key research stakeholders in Africa and Europe, we published recommendations for the place of research in the Global Gateway Africa-Europe Investment Package, ahead of the finalisation of the AU–EU Innovation Agenda in June.
Check our latest activities on North-South collaboration.