Wednesday 29 March 2023 - From 21 to 26 March, a delegation of 22 VUB representatives visited Cape Town, South Africa. They were there to take part in an academic mission to strengthen VUB’s partnerships with Stellenbosch University and the University of the Western Cape, in research, education and service to society. How does an academic mission like this work? Who determines the programme? And why is it important to establish international relationships with universities? Who better to explain than our vice-rector for Internationalisation, Prof Dr Karin Vanderkerken, who was part of the delegation.
Karin, what is VUB doing in Cape Town?
There are different types of missions: state missions, government missions and academic missions. The Belgian King and Queen were on a state mission in South Africa last week, in the presence of an academic delegation. Rector Jan Danckaert was part of the delegation.
At VUB, we organised an academic mission in parallel with a visit to our international partners Stellenbosch University, global partner of EUTOPIA, and the University of the Western Cape, with whom we signed a strategic international partnership agreement. The state visit strengthens our image as an international university, as well as the impact of our parallel academic mission. So this was an opportunity we could not miss. Almost every faculty was represented, which explains why there was such a large delegation. In addition, the team was reinforced with colleagues working on international relations.
A visit with a mission, then. How will this international academic mission help deepen the partnerships with the universities?
A Kenyan saying goes: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” In terms of international collaborations with strategic and global partners, this is once again true.
By exchanging knowledge and insights with each other on research, teaching and socially relevant projects, we can enhance the quality of our academic mission. That is what our delegation did here: meeting their counterparts, exchanging knowledge and ideas and getting inspired. Where possible, we sought and discussed collaborative opportunities on issues such as staff and student mobility, joint PhDs, internships, joint research projects and information exchange on funding opportunities.
Who determines the programme?
The programme came about after joint consultation between the partner university and VUB. To this end, the International Relations offices of both institutions coordinated with the participating academics. And that resulted in plenary and discipline-specific sessions.
You also mentioned SIP, a strategic international partnership.
SIPs are partnerships with a single university in a particular region, or a consortium of universities in a particular region. By entering into SIPs, we strengthen our regional policy on international collaborations. Our goal is to eventually have a SIP on every continent. In doing so, each university in the partnership has responsibilities to achieve the desired result, which is why agreements are set out officially. We do not choose these strategic partners lightly, but with a view to a sustainable and future-oriented cooperation.
Therefore, it is important that:
- the strategic partners share a compatible mission and vision as well as the same values;
- there is already cooperation within the three science domains, namely life sciences, sciences and engineering, and human and social sciences;
- there is already cooperation in the field of education and research and preferably valorisation;
- there is a joint steering committee for each strategic partnership that updates it at least once a year and monitors if necessary.
These conditions for a SIP allow us to build and exchange expertise with carefully selected international partners who already have a certain scale or volume of cooperation with VUB. A cooperation we strengthen by expanding existing initiatives or setting up new ones. And that is positive, because it stimulates closer cooperation between science domains and faculties within VUB. This interdisciplinarity is much needed to solve the complex problems in our society. In addition, the cooperation also gives us extra added value in terms of image and increases the global impact and visibility of VUB. And that in turn offers the opportunity to expand our own network.
In short, by approaching our cooperation with international partners as a strategic process, we can strengthen our joint goals and actions and increase our impact. And that helps us do things better in our job, in our institution, in the world.
Why is it important for VUB to engage in international collaborations with other universities like this? And to make them official through a SIP agreement? How does maintaining international relations help realise the vision and mission of our university?
Higher education occurs in an international setting. To pass the benchmark and thus future-proof the functioning of our university, internationalisation is necessary. The increasing internationalisation of the core tasks – research and education – and the growing number of international students, researchers and staff, as well as VUB's policy choice to connect not only on a regional and national level but also on an international level, necessitates a diverse and multi-layered approach. These strategic partners are of strategic importance for the whole of VUB.
Is this international academic mission important for the functioning and strengthening of EUTOPIA?
Definitely! For EUTOPIA to succeed, it is important we get to know each other better. I don't just mean the policymakers, but also the researchers and professors who will work with our foreign partners. We have a whole range of channels where researchers can apply for funds to support those collaborations, in addition to the EU-funded project called EUTOPIA-MORE.
How many international universities do we have such collaborations with?
We currently have four global partners in EUTOPIA and two SIPs. They are quite new concepts and before we expand further, we want to further establish cooperation with these partners and work out a sustainable cooperation model with them.
How do we choose which international universities to partner with? Do certain conditions have to be met?
Collaboration grows from the bottom up and can have different objectives, e.g. student or staff exchange, joint organisation of events, joint educational initiatives or research collaboration.
When we find that there is cooperation from different disciplines or that there is potential for expansion to multiple disciplines, we consolidate at the central level and this partner can become an institutional partner, supported by a memorandum of understanding. Within a given discipline, a collaboration often starts from research and we see a spur to student exchange or teaching cooperation. A broad-based cooperation is more successful in terms of sustainability, i.e. long-term cooperation.
We engage with universities that share the same values as VUB. The internationalisation policy is based on the VUB values of freedom, equality and solidarity. Moreover, we expect both partners to strengthen each other in their mission. The cooperation must be transparent and pass the human rights test. This test was drawn up within the Flemish interuniversity council and then implemented in the Flemish universities.
VUB representatives travelled to Cape Town. Do we in Brussels occasionally get visits from other international universities?
Certainly, we have regular visits from other universities, sometimes with small delegations but also regularly larger ones.
How many more academic missions are planned this year?
Two more official missions are planned, an economic mission to Australia and a royal mission to Germany. Two EUTOPIA weeks are planned each year, hosted by one of the partners. The first EUTOPIA week will take place in Lisbon in June. There are also discussions about organising possible other VUB missions, including to Mexico. There is also an economic mission to Senegal, in which VUB will not participate.
Want to know more about the VUB policy on internationalisation? Click here