The PASCAL Centre in Africa recently hosted a meeting of the Strengthening the Regional Engagement Role of Universities in Africa and Asia (SRERUAA) project in Cape Town.

This project came about as a result of the Scottish Funding Council having provided the University of Glasgow with a Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) grant to support cutting edge research that addresses the challenges faced by ODA/LMIC countries. The project concerns the regional engagement (third mission) role of universities, namely those activities that lie outside the core missions of research and teaching, and is a development of approaches used with the PASCAL Universities Regional Engagement (PURE). The project is led by CR&DALL Director, Michael Osborne,  together with Muir Houston and Katarzyna Borkowska both also from the University of Glasgow.

The partners in the project, all shown in the above photograph, are Marius Venter (PASCAL Director, Africa) and Lorraine Greyling, University of Johannesburg, Mpoki Mwaikokesya, (a former PhD student from at the University of Glasgow) and Heriel Moshi, (both University of Dar es Salem),  Professor Charles Nherara, University of Zimbabwe, Tendai Nhenga, (Africa University, Zimbabwe),  Kamal Ketuly and Sizar Dosky, (both, University of Duhok, Iraq) Nematollah Azizi and Lamiah Hashemi (both University of Kurdistan, Iran )and Dr Zenaida Reyes and Jenina Nalipay (both, Philippines National University).

The meeting also include Chris Duke, Academic Director of the PURE project, who provided an overview of previous work and Enrico Jacobs, Vice-Chancellor of the Belgian Campus, Pretoria, co-host of the next PASCAL conference.

In each of the six countries overviews of the regional engagement role of university systems have been completed, and will be published in future postings. Abstracts will be available shortly. There will also follow a thematic analysis across the sites involved in the project.

Marius Venter leading a visit to a learning centre in the Theewaterskloof Local Municipality, which aspires to become a learning region.