The Italian Higher Education with Africa Foundation has been constituted by the union of six prestigious Italian universities. An international development cooperation project to support young African talents and promote the growth of local universities.
The University of Bologna, together with the Polytechnic of Milan, the University of Florence, the University of Naples Federico II, the University of Padua and La Sapienza - University of Rome, adheres to the IHEA Foundation project to strengthen the international collaboration between universities and contribute to the implementation of a multidisciplinary university program, specifically adapted to the African continent.
In Africa, the support to the development of teaching, training, student empowerment and training of the staff becomes more urgent every day. The Foundation's missions, therefore, include a program dedicated to young people and aimed at the achievement of educational qualifications recognized in Italy and within the European area of education, and which will allow access to managerial, academic, or political-administrative careers in the countries involved. The alumni community of the program will also consolidate the cultural, educational and training heritage of its countries while strengthening the relations and opportunities for exchange with Italy.
One of the Foundation's short-term objectives is to support the resilience of African educational systems, starting with a strategic action based on three pillars: a virtual mobility program, the design of dedicated Bachelor Degrees and Specializing Masters aimed at forming a new generation of qualified researchers and teachers. The need for qualified training to support socio-economic development in the African continent emerged even more overwhelmingly during the Covid-19 emergency and, thanks to the prompt response of the universities of the IHEA Foundation, the virtual mobility program will be starting already from the first semester of the Academic Year 2020/21.
The first result for a major international development cooperation project.
