UCL African Partners Summit: Emerging lessons from COVID-19

The Global Engagement Office will host the UCL African Partners Summit on 22 July 2020 to examine the impact of COVID-19 on global partnerships in higher education and the future of engagement with African partners. The event will be held virtually on MS Teams Live.

Professor Michael Arthur, President and Provost of UCL, and Professor Adam Habib, Vice Chancellor of University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in South Africa, will open the event. The summit will feature two sessions chaired by UCL Pro-Vice-Provost (Africa and Middle East) Professor Ijeoma Uchegbu and include speakers from UCL’s key African partner institutions, as well as UCL academics.

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Session 1: Impact of COVID-19 on global partnerships: Emerging lessons

10:15 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. (BST)

In this session, panellists from UCL and higher education institutions in Africa will discuss lessons learned from responding to COVID-19, both from a scientific and socio-political perspective. They will also explore the impact of the pandemic on global partnership development.  

Session 2: Future directions of global engagement

1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. (BST)

The second session will focus on future directions of HE global engagement, building on discussions of lessons learned from COVID-19 in the first session. Panellists will discuss opportunities for more sustainable global engagement and new ways of collaborating virtually, arising from recent travel restrictions.  

Panellists:

Mr George Ananga, East Africa representative, Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU)
Prof Ernest Aryeetey, Secretary General, African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA)
Prof Delmiro Fernandez-Reyes, Digital Health and Intelligent Systems, UCL 
Prof Willem Hanekom, Director, Africa Health Research Institute (AHRI)
Prof Tshilidzi Marwala, Vice Chancellor, University of Johannesburg
Prof Abel Idowu Olayinka, Vice Chancellor, University of Ibadan
Prof Mamokgethi Phakeng, Vice Chancellor, University of Cape Town
Prof Deenan Pillay, Pro-Vice-Provost (International), UCL
Prof Andrew Thompson, Executive Chair of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)
Prof Zeblon Vilakazi, Deputy Vice Chancellor & incoming Vice Chancellor, Wits University 

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