The project aims to strengthen educational innovation in African higher education through the implementation of a sustainable and efficient network of institutions (6 African and 6 European ones) as well as experts in the development of MOOC (massive open online course) from Cameroon and Senegal. This network would promote access to higher education and improve teaching conditions and learning practices. To this end, the project targets the adoption of innovative educational practices, namely practices designed to substantially improve students’ learning, initially by teachers from partner institutions and in the long term by teachers outside the consortium through the development of MOOC and blended learning. Based on a one-year preliminary research which identified the needs of end users (Roland, Stavroulakis, François & Emplit, 2017), the project is structured around 5 areas: networking, institutional support, pedagogical support, technology development in line with the sub-Saharan African context and an iterative approach throughout continuous assessment. Therefore, the activities aim to develop, through partners, a network of excellence in terms of development and reuse of MOOC that will ultimately be able to transfer its expertise at an institutional and at a national level; to develop, by building capacities, support structures for innovative pedagogical practices within partner institutions; to produce technology solutions tailored to the African context for online and offline distribution of MOOC; to adopt a quality approach throughout the project in order to improve every step; to prepare and support the development of 14 MOOC (two national and two per institution); to promote blended learning practices and arouse an institutional reflection on how MOOC should be integrated in curricula and learners’ certification through these devices.

In this project, eight universities in 4 countries in Africa (Cameroon, Ethiopia, Mauritius, Mozambique) will benefit and collaborate with two universities in EU (Italy, Sweden) towards modernization of courses and programs in the energy sector, with emphasize upon the general perspectives of circular economy towards energy sustainability. The collaboration is inspired by two earlier successful Erasmus+ Capacity Building in Higher Education. It will re-use both the framework and learning material developed from these projects while developing and implementing specific new courses and programs adapted for the local conditions in the partner countries.The courses and programs to be developed will enhance the modernization process of the partner universities by introducing a student-centered flipped classroom approach in which innovation and entrepreneurship takes a predominant role. All material is developed in digital online format and can as such be read also in remote areas, both as part of a formal academic study program and as stand-alone modules for individual learning journeys. Learning resources and courses will be shared between the partners throughout the project and common implementation will be performed. Business cases and global challenges related to the UN Sustainability Goals, and specifically adapted towards global greenhouse gas mitigation, are introduced in the modernized curricula. A university-wide “Challenge” course will be installed in each partner HEI such that students from different disciplines can come together within, as well as between, university. At the end of the project the partner universities will have clearly demonstrated, in a measurable and scalable way, that it is possible to collaborate on educational material in the energy sector in a global perspective, to co-create and re-use material from other countries, improve the material, adapt it to local conditions and create an international collaboration.

The overall objective of Joint AQ Africa is to contribute to the harmonization of higher education in Africa by setting up comparable quality assurance systems, defined by the cooperation of national authorities and HEI. The project will engage three pilot countries (Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire), in the development of a model for university institutional and programme level evaluation, based on a joint and complementary approach (national/regional/African continental) in order to inspire joint accreditation in French-speaking Africa, in particular. The methodology involves several stakeholders in this process and ultimately addresses the different gaps that exist in the various countries targeted, in terms of consolidating their QA and accreditation systems:a)Ministries and QA agencies and their capacities to agree on a common model for joint assessment;b)Universities and their abilities to assess their performance against these standards and to build their own internal QA processes;c)The main networks and associations for higher education and quality assurance in Africa, and their capacities to work collectively in the region and internationally, and to promote and apply similar approaches to other African countries and regions.The main outputs will be the development of a joint evaluation model, guidelines for its execution and six pilot evaluations. African partner universities will build capacity for self-assessment, through training for quality assurance staff. Training is also offered to the staff of ministries, and spaces are created whereby ministries and universities co-create approaches and build trust towards their respective QA systems. Through CAMES and important associated partners, awareness will be raised at the political level on the importance of the consolidation of a regional accreditation approach, which can serve systems which do not yet have QA agencies and can put forward mutual recognition of accreditation decisions.