The VUB’s ‘University Development Cooperation’ work, with its administrative management housed in the VUB’s International Relations office, will change its name to ‘International Equitable Cooperation’ – IEC for short. The university’s work in this area runs across a lot of its education and research. This is more than a mere change in name; it is a change in strategic vision, which responds to evolving global challenges, and to align fully with the university’s mission as a research-driven, critically-thinking, and internationally-oriented institution committed to social impact and sustainability.
As Karin Vanderkerken, Vice-Rector Internationalisation explains, “With the move towards international equitable cooperation, the university wants to challenge traditional development narratives, ensure equitable partnerships which produce meaningful impact locally and globally”.
What does this mean in practice?
The change in focus rests on three interconnected goals:
- Rethinking university development cooperation: A shift from development-centric approaches towards partnerships based on equity, reciprocity, and mutual growth.
- Contextualised research and education: Ensuring that research and education are transdisciplinary, participatory, and specifically tailored to local contexts, local needs, and local capacity.
- Scientific update, and educational and research contributions to sustainability: Strengthening the impact of research and education through shared ownership, involving local change agents and intermediary partners, to enhance sustainability and societal transformation.
Five key priorities:
- Embedding the concept of International Equitable Cooperation across all programmes and communications
- Moving beyond the traditional Global North-Global South dichotomy, by recognising mutual development needs and sustainability challenges
- Proactively addressing and mitigating power imbalances, which are often inherent in international collaborations
- Implementing context-specific transdisciplinary research and educational practices
- Sharing ownership and responsibility to increase scientific uptake and amplifying contributions towards sustainable development.
This will all translate into specific action points, assigned primarily to the VUB International Relations office and Vice-Rectorate Internationalisation. Examples are institutionalising the use of IEC terminology, moving beyond the Global North–Global South dichotomy through the adoption of Raworth’s country clusters aligning evaluation criteria, expanding funding sources, strengthening the alumni network, and fostering sustainable cross-research group collaborations. “All will work in complete alignment with the VUB’s mission and the EUTOPIA Alliance’s Responsible Internationalisation Position Statement. The key message is really: high-quality, globally-relevant and locally-grounded research and education. VUB is an internationally recognised and highly-valued institution, dedicated to critical thinking, societal engagement, inclusivity, sustainability and global citizenship. All this allows us to effectively address contemporary global issues,” Vanderkerken adds.
The implementation of this new strategic approach will be overseen by the VUB’s Council for International Policy (RIB, in Dutch), with advice from the Special Advisory Board for Development Cooperation (BAOW, in Dutch, to be renamed BAEIS – Bijzonder Adviesorgaan voor Evenwaardige Internationale Samenwerking).
- You can read the strategy document in full here.
- Any questions? Please contact icos@vub.be