The Institut Catalunya Àfrica (Catalonia-Africa Institute, ICA) was founded Barcelona, Spain, at the end of 2007 with the following twofold vocation: to incentivize and reinforce cooperation between Catalan and African universities and to transfer teaching and research results to society and the business sector.

 

This institution has a series of objectives: Promote agreements between European and African universities to contribute teaching staff and facilities to undergraduate and postgraduate courses; promote grants to enable students at African universities to undertake postgraduate studies at European universities; aid and promote the creation of university institutes and schools; promote publications African history and culture; that help explain the history and reality of the populations and cultures of the African continent to the world; encourage research projects carried out by mixed teams from European and African universities; promote and provide specific aid for the incorporation of ICTs into African universities and schools to promote distance learning and foster the creation and expansion of libraries in African universities and schools.

 

All of the Catalan public universities (members of the Catalan Association of Public Universities, ACUP) and the Ramón Llull University participate in the Institute’s Academic Committee, which was created at the beginning of 2008. The objective of this interdisciplinary body (which includes economists, political scientists, historians, doctors, anthropologists and philosophers) is to propose high-quality research and teaching projects that make the best use of the network of researchers and teachers who work on African topics at Catalan universities.

 

At the initiative of the Academic Committee and supported by the chairman of the ICA, Antoni Pérez Portabella, and by the Honorary Committee, which represents the main business and social sectors of Catalonia (health, finance, food and beverage, technology, etc.), the ICA promoted and organized a series of international meetings. In June 2008, the First International Meeting of African and Catalan Universities was held in Barcelona and the working session “Economy and Globalization in Black Africa” took place at Ramón Llull University. Participating in the working session were Professor Luís de Sebastian (ESADE), Professor Juan Tugores (University of Barcelona), Professor Babacar Fall (Cheikh Anta Diop University, Senegal) and Professor Manasse Esoavelamandroso (University of Antananarivo, Madagascar). 

 

Two internal working round tables involved academic representatives and university managers from Catalan and African universities discussing their concerns and needs, and their interest in two programmes proposed by the ICA: the Master’s Degree in African Social Studies and a university management training programme. 

 

The representatives of African universities at the working sessions were from the University of Ouagadougou and Bobo-Dioulasso Polytechnic University (Burkina Faso), the University of Yaoundé I (Cameroon), Equatorial Guinea National University (UNGE), the University of Antananarivo (Madagascar), the University of Bamako (Mali), Cheikh Anta Diop University (Senegal), the University of Lomé (Togo), Agostinho Neto University (Angola) and Eduardo Mondlane University (Mozambique). 

 

As a result of this first international meeting, an agreement was reached with the African universities to offer the Euro-African Master’s Degree in Social Sciences of Development: Cultures and Development in Africa.  In April of this year there will be an International Symposium on African Literature, which will be directed by Jacint Creus (University of Barcelona) and held at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona.

The Academic Committee, at the proposal of the Chairman of the ICA, also approved support for a training programme in university management, to be jointly run by the ACUP and the following universities: Cheikh Anta Diop (Senegal), Yaoundé I (Cameroon), Antananarivo (Madagascar), Equatorial Guinea (UNGE) and Eduardo Mondlane (Mozambique). Distribution has begun of the three Catalan scientific journals dedicated to African studies—Studia Africana, Nova Àfrica and Oráfrica—and a multidisciplinary collection of works by young African researchers is being prepared on subjects such as economics, anthropology, history, health and law, with prior review by an ICA expert panel.

 

In January of last year the creation of the Euro-African Master’s Degree in Social Sciences of Development: Cultures and Development in Africa was approved by the Catalan and African Universities, to be taught simultaneously at four schools on the two continents.

 

The two-year master’s degree course (120 ECTS credits) has two streams: professional career-oriented (cooperation, enterprise, public administration, specialized press, health) and research career-oriented (doctoral degrees and the university field, to cover the demand for capacity building of quality university teaching staff to ensure that a new generation will carry on this work at African universities).

 

Under the scientific supervision of Ferran Iniesta (University of Barcelona) are the school heads: Manassé Esoavelomandroso (University of Antananarivo), Oum Ndigi (Yaoundé I University), Momar Coumba Diop (Cheikh Anta Diop University) and Albert Roca (University of Lleida). They have the support of the four school coordinators: Gabriel Rantoandro (University of Antananarivo), Tjade Eone (Yaoundé I and II universities), Babacar Fall (Cheikh Anta Diop University) and Alberto López Bargados (University of Barcelona). Other universities interested in participating in future master’s degree course projects developed by the ICA (Angola, Mali, Nigeria, Mozambique, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Togo, Equatorial Guinea, South Africa).

 

During 2009, work is being done on the course curriculum and subjects, the selection of teaching staff, the development of a website to enable support of teaching through online work, achieving official recognition under the European Higher Education Area criteria and the opening of funding lines, since this is a high-quality master’s degree course and the first of this scope between the European Union and African universities. There will a rigorous selection process based on candidates’ academic records and professional CVs, to reach a total of 120 students enrolled at the four schools.

 

The core areas of the master’s degree course that have been agreed on and will be common to the four schools are social future, communities in Africa and African thought; culture, education and development; political systems and development actors; international relations, resources and globalization; African economic perspectives; and basic instruments and methodology.

 

Each school will have a qualified teaching staff of between 40 and 60 teachers (approximately 200 in total) and some will travel to other schools to perform their work. Likewise, a group of students will be able to complete their master’s degree course at a different school to the one where they first enrolled. To this end, a significant number of grants will be offered to students: at this time the Institut Catalunya Àfrica has received support from the private (Banco Santander) and public (Catalan Agency for Development Cooperation, ACCD) sectors for the project implementation phase.

 

In June 2009, as part of the Second International Meeting of African and Catalan Universities that will be held in Barcelona, the Catalan and African universities will sign the definitive agreements for this first teaching project between universities on the two continents.

 

This project will have the involvement of practically all the Catalan universities and three of the main African universities, and this will ensure that the teaching staff is as large as possible. Beginning in the 2010-2011 academic year, the course will be a high-quality, interdisciplinary, international and interuniversity degree in the field of social sciences, adapted to the specific needs of development in Africa. It will open the way for other quality postgraduate courses to be jointly offered by European and African universities in the fields of health, economics, international relations, renewable energies and other fields. The commitment of the ICA and its chairman to promoting a network of agreements between universities on the two continents is the best guarantee that in the short term a wide range of well-trained specialists on African issues will be available in Europe. It will also ensure the renewal and reactivation of African postgraduate studies, which have been neglected due to the restrictive policies of global financial institutions. With this first master’s degree course, a new cycle of relations is being opened between specialists in the North and South, thus setting the scene for future collaboration in all fields of knowledge and their practical applications.

 

On behalf of the Academic Committee of the ICA

Ferran Iniesta (University of Barcelona)