The delegation in Pretoria. Back row l-r: Isabel de Necker (from Pretoria), Margareta Nordstrand, Ann-Katrin Bäcklund, Lars Ljungälv, Magnus Jirström, Pär Svensson. Front row: Vicky Mogotsi (Pretoria), Barbara Törnquist-Plewa, Nils Danielsen, Eva Wiberg and Katarina Olsson
It’s Sunday afternoon. Back home in Sweden it’s a raw winter’s day, but in Gaborone a summer storm is in the air. Here in Botswana people are longing for rain. The drought has been persistent, but the rain just isn’t coming. It’s an effort to move at all in this heat. Eva Wiberg sits herself in a wicker chair on the hotel veranda and orders a cola with a slice of lemon before beginning to sum up the past week leading the delegation in southern Africa.
It’s been an intensive week. The delegation has split up and visited different universities, but it is still Eva Wiberg who is the VIP and that puts her under an obligation. Doors have been opened and the delegation has been received with respect and support everywhere. As Professor Katarina Olsson put it during the week:
“The importance of travelling with members of university management can’t be stressed enough. We are welcomed in a completely different way from when we travel at faculty level or as individual researchers and lecturers.”
Africa is on the move. In a number of countries, growth has been sky-high and development is at record levels. On the entire continent there are 3 000 universities, but quality varies. There are 2 000 universities that are never mentioned in rankings. So where should we start in drawing up an Africa strategy?
“You have to start somewhere, and we have chosen to start where we already have established networks and collaborations. In southern Africa there is the SANORD network, of which we are a member. The University of Johannesburg has just become a member of U21. As regards co-publications with Africa, Lund University has by far the most with South Africa”, says Eva Wiberg.
The Africa strategy is part of a wider international strategy that will result in an internationalisation policy with a number of focus areas. Today’s 680 agreements with countries around the world is too many, according to Eva Wiberg.
“We can’t maintain a focus with so many agreements, a number of which are at department or faculty level. Once we’ve finished this process, faculties and departments will still be able to sign their own agreements, but these will be outside the strategy.”
Strategic agreements can be based on different factors. The universities with which Lund chooses to collaborate are sometimes research-intensive and comprehensive, or they may be in regions of particular interest.
“However, there could also be collaborations on infrastructure or researcher exchanges, or collaborations in which we exercise our corporate social responsibility”, says Eva Wiberg.
One thing that has been clear in the discussions with the management of the universities visited in southern Africa is the crying need to get more people doing PhDs. In a country like South Africa with a population of 50 million, there are only 1 300 doctoral students.
“We can help in this area by providing mentoring or supervision”, says Eva Wiberg.
However, the collaborations sought are to be firmly based on a principle of give and take. Lund University wants to be able to send students on interesting exchanges and work placements, and has a lot to learn, in the field of medicine in particular. In Africa, knowledge of infectious diseases, traffic injuries and deformities is particularly good.
Other areas of interest are collaboration on road safety, water resources and climate change.
“It has been incredibly important to come here and see with our own eyes what opportunities there are. We can’t do everything, but there is a strong interest in collaboration and Sweden has had a very good reputation since the apartheid era. Our high international ranking is also useful to us”, says Eva Wiberg.
It is time for her to leave the interview to prepare for the coming week, when she will be the keynote speaker at the SANORD conference in Malawi.
“The success of this week in Africa builds on many years of work and contact between researchers and administrators. When we get home, we will digest our impressions and analyse what has come out of the trip in order to be able to move forward with practical steps in certain areas.”
Text and photo: Anna Johansson
SANORD
SANORD stands for Southern African–Nordic Centre and its members are universities in the Nordic countries and southern Africa. The purpose of the network is to facilitate, expand and strengthen collaborations and contacts between higher education institutions in southern Africa and Scandinavia. SANORD was formed in 2007 and has member universities in around 10 countries. Three universities in Sweden are members: Lund, Uppsala and Karlstad.
