GERMANY: Science boost for development

The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) has launched two new programmes focusing on development cooperation. Universities identified as having the best concepts to address problems in developing countries will receive special funding from the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. And, via the Foreign Office's Aktion Afrika programme, Centres of excellence for teaching and research are being established to train future leaders in Sub-Saharan Africa.

"We believe that in the debate on excellence in higher education, one criterion has been given too little attention so far: that of higher education's involvement in development cooperation," says Helmuth Blumbach, head of the DAAD's Southern Hemisphere Department.

"Our new competition has two objectives: making the public more aware of the contribution that higher education is making to this area, and giving institutions, and in particular their heads, a clear sign that these activities are truly worthwhile."

A total of 44 concepts had been handed in by institutions by December. An international committee of experts has now shortlisted 13 institutions for the final heat, in which five will be chosen for funding. Each winner will then be eligible for up to EUR1 million (US$1.3 million) a year over a five-year period.

Universities and other higher education institutions throughout Germany were invited to submit concepts referring to the Millennium Goals. Issues the 13 institutions chosen so far wish to treat range from appropriate technologies and combating AIDS/HIV to finance and trade and decent work. Eleven universities and two Fachhochschulen (practice-related higher education institutions) are on the shortlist for the final round of selection.

Blumbach stresses the programme's aim to promote collaborative schemes that also build on local expertise in developing countries. Visiting chairs are to be established at German institutions where academics from the partner countries are to teach.

"The involvement of German higher education institutions in development cooperation is far more intensive than the public is aware of," explains DAAD Secretary-General Christian Bode. He maintains the impulse given by the Excellence Initiative of 2005-2007, a competitive procedure run by the federal and länder governments in which the winners were rewarded with extra funding, now needs to be taken advantage of to further boost this area.

The institutions selected in the two DAAD programmes in no way reflect the concentration of winning universities in the Excellence Initiative in the wealthy southern länder but are spread across the country.

Germany's higher education institutions train some 150,000 students from developing countries and newly emerging economies each year. Around 40% of the DAAD's funding is spent on cooperation in higher education with developing countries.

Another programme focuses on training lecturers at leading African universities at international level to assume executive roles in areas key to development, a general feature being cross-sector topics such as good governance, administration, team formation and conflict management. Five specialist centres are being established in close cooperation between German and African institutions.

One of them, the Tanzanian-German Centre for Law, in which the universities of Dar-es-Salaam and Bayreuth are collaborating, started operating in the autumn. The Congolese-German Centre for Microfinance (Université Protestante au Congo, Kinshasa, and Frankfurt School of Finance and Management) is to be launched in March.

The three other schemes are the Ghanaian-German Centre for Development and Medical Research (University of Ghana, Center for Development Research (ZEF), Bonn, and University Clinic of Heidelberg), the Namibian-German Centre for Logistics (Polytechnic of Namibia and University of Bayreuth) and the South African-German Centre for Development Research and Criminal Law (Universities of the Western Cape and Bochum).

Each centre is to receive up to EUR500,000 a year, to be spent on training and upgrading the lecturers as well as improving infrastructure and developing modern courses. Close cooperation between the centres themselves and the concept of a "true partnership", with collaboration at eye level between the German and the African partners, are focal aspects of the programme.

All German and a range of leading African institutions were invited to participate in the competitive procedure which attracted 70 applications. An independent committee chose the five most distinguished collaborative schemes last June.

michael.gardner@uw-news.com