Signature of a collaborative framework agreement between Montpellier University of Excellence and University of Pretoria, South Africa

A  strategic partner of Montpellier University of Excellence, University  of Pretoria (South Africa) signs a framework agreement with University  of Montpellier.

On Wednesday 12 December 2018, the University of Montpellier and the University of Pretoria, South Africa, signed a collaborative framework  agreement between the two universities to strengthen and develop their  existing partnership within the framework of the I-SITE MUSE  (Montpellier University of Excellence). 

Ranked first African university by UniRank, with nearly 40,000  students, the University of Pretoria is a multidisciplinary university  that positions itself as one of the leading universities in Africa and  beyond, through ambitious internationalization programs such as the one  formalized today with Montpellier University of Excellence.

For Professor Cheryl de la Rey, Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the  University of Pretoria (UP), this collaboration is based on “UP’s  long-term strategic objective of strengthening the international  dimension of the university through the visibility of research and  university programs […] and making UP one of the leading  research-intensive universities in Africa and beyond”.

Scientific cooperation between UP and the members of the MUSE  consortium – particularly with CIRAD (since 1997), CNRS and the  University of Montpellier – is fruitful and fertile, particularly in the  fields of environmental and ecological sciences, veterinary sciences,  and microbiology, and in research on infectious diseases, food safety  and public policies. These shared themes are at the heart of MUSE’s  scientific project, which seeks to respond to three major societal  challenges: FEED – PROTECT – CARE.

This framework agreement, which is signed on the occasion of the  launching of the African Research Universities Alliance Center of  Excellence (ARUA CoE), seeks to promote exchanges and collaborations  between UP and MUSE scientific and academic teams in the fields of  education and research. Therefore these exchanges aim to develop  cooperation, including:

• organizing, programming and implementing joint education and research missions;
• exchanging scientific, technical and educational information and organizing joint seminars, symposiums and conferences;
• joint publishing and implementation of research results;
• joint responses to national, regional, and international calls-for-tender and search for national and international funding;
• sharing scientific resources and/or equipment/facilities for research, education and information purposes.

This bilateral partnership illustrates the desire, reaffirmed in  front of the international jury which selected I-SITE MUSE, to boost  mobility and exchanges of researchers and students, and to reach greater  international exposure. With this approach, both institutions seek to  formalize strong existing ties, as a sign of the momentum triggered by  the MUSE consortium’s international strategy.

To date, similar agreements have been signed with Wageningen  University & Research (Netherlands), University of Barcelona  (Spain), University of California, Davis (USA) and the University of  Porto (Portugal).