Overview
The Partnership for Africa’s Next Generation of Academics (PANGeA) is a collaborative network consisting of leading African universities focused on fostering excellence in scholarship across the arts, humanities and social sciences on the African continent.
The network aims to:
Responding to the challenge of the brain drain from Africa and to reverse the decline of science and scholarship in African higher education – particularly in the arts, humanities and social sciences - the network aims to strengthen the development of higher education in Africa.
The network focuses on creating opportunities for collaborative research and exchange among partner institutions, full-time doctoral study and, in the long term, the establishment of joint doctoral degree programmes in the arts, humanities and social sciences.
History
PANGeA was founded in 2010 by the University of Botswana, the University of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), Makerere University (Uganda), the University of Malawi, the University of Nairobi (Kenya) and Stellenbosch University (South Africa). Four years later, the University of Ghana and the University of Yaoundé I in Cameroon joined the consortium.
The PANGeA initiative came into existence during a workshop held at Stellenbosch University for deans of faculties of arts, humanities and social sciences in November 2006. Discussions resumed in Uganda in March 2009 around the establishment of a resilient partnership between the partner universities to recruit students and staff to participate in the PANGeA network and resulted in the signing of a Letter of Intent.
A second meeting held late 2009 in Tanzania produced a draft multilateral memorandum of understanding which was negotiated by management on the partner campuses and officially signed by all partners in Stellenbosch on 12 November 2010.
Advantages and expansion of PANGeA
Students from partner institutions are accorded in accessing places in the summer and winter schools of the African Doctoral Academy, and in the “scholarship communities” (seminars, workshops and colloquia) around approved research themes.
Similarly, staff from partner institutions are given priority in academic exchanges and in the supervision training. Partners are able to tap into and make available the expertise located in partner institutions.