Australia Africa Universities Network Forum and AGM 2016

AAUN holds its Annual Conference and AGM on 5 September 2016 as part of Australia-Africa Week (5 -9 September 2016 in Perth).

The main themes are ‘The practical implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals’ and ‘Australia Africa Comparative Advantages’ including Chinese, European and American partnerships.

There will be a joint symposium with the Australia Africa Research Forum on Tuesday 6 September on Agriculture & Food, Nutrition & Health, Education & Training, and Mining & Extractives.

Conference Objectives:

The objective is to share information between the continents, and to develop strategic partnership and capacity that deliver practical outcomes between business, academia and government.

Main themes:

The following main themes will be integrated into speaker topics at the plenary sessions in the morning:

• The global policy framework
  What are the priorities and practical applications for policies in Climate Change, the Sustainable Development Goals, The Chinese “Belt and Road” approach and the Trans Pacific Partnership? How best can Australia and its African Partners align and engage?
• Knowledge Partnerships in areas of mutual advantage & challenges
  What are the most effective institutional links and people to people programs that can build strong approaches to mutual challenges, while uncovering mutual opportunities?
• Science, Technology and Innovation for economic development
  How can the sectors represented at Australia Africa Week, from business, academia and government, work together in building critical mass and more holistic engagement for mutual benefit?
• Health, Nutrition and Food Security, with related areas of higher education
  What are the priorities for equal partnerships in research, education and training that will serve national environmental and socio-economic interests, while building capacities and impact.

Workshop sessions:

The workshop sessions in the afternoon will focus on coming up with real project ideas considering the following:

• Exploring common priorities across Australia and Africa countries and identify priority programs and projects for taking strong partnerships forward
• Learning from last year (AAC 2015) and the projects that were funded with seed funds from AAUN, sponsored by the Australian Government
• Identifying a few priority projects arising from the workshop that might be competitive for seed funding inn 2016-17
• Forming potential business and academic partnerships between participants from the two continents

There will be leading speakers in research and development from Africa and Australia.

For more information regarding the UWA Africa Research Cluster: http://www.arts.uwa.edu.au/research/clusters/Africa_Research

Please see the AAUN website for further information on the network: http://aaun.edu.au