An alliance of this kind is new in Germany. The University of Cologne is responsible for managing the liaison office, which is located in the premises of the Goethe Institute in Accra, on behalf of the consortium. Alongside HHU, the alliance also includes Dortmund Technical University, the University of Duisburg-Essen, the University of Siegen and the Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences.
“We are aiming to improve networking and raise the profile of these universities in the country. This also includes attracting students to participate in exchanges and initiating further research collaboration,” says Professor Dr Stefan Marschall, Vice President for International Relations and Science Communication. “Some of our professors have already been collaborating with West African colleagues in a spirit of trust for a long period and we want to build on this.”
Two examples
The historian Professor Dr Stefanie Michels has already initiated a partnership with the University of Ghana (Accra) and the Université de Lomé in Togo via Erasmus programmes. The project is due to run until 2025 and students from Ghana and Togo will also come to HHU. The immunologist and specialist in infectious diseases Professor Dr rer.-nat. Marc Jacobsen has been working with African institutions for 20 years in total and there have been joint projects with KNUST (Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology) in Kumasi for 15 years. Here, in cooperation with the Kumasi Center for Collaborative Research for Tropical Medicine (KCCR), research is being conducted into the immunopathology of tuberculosis.
The HHU University Development Plan includes the aim of establishing partnerships with universities in the Global South. This step is now building on the existing cooperations with research facilities and faculties in Africa. At an initial round table event in November 2022, interested parties from all areas of HHU met for a dialogue on further areas for cooperation. The intention is to hold such an event every year.
The consortium is currently in the pilot phase, which will run for three years. The office in Ghana is headed by Dr Beatrice Asenso Barnieh, who will establish contacts in the Ghanaian university and research landscape. The geoscientist is from Ghana herself and has researched and studied in Germany, the Netherlands and China for a number of years.
Interested researchers and lecturers at HHU can contact anette.gasche(at)hhu.de if they have questions.
The Alliance has a dedicated website.
A partnership agreement has existed between the state of NRW and Ghana since 2007.