Projects

Expertise and research work,

“Evaluation of the EDULINK Programme and preparation of a new proposal - under the Intra-ACP 10th EDF strategy paper”

ACP

European Commission

ACP countries

The EDULINK Programme is designed to foster co-operation in the field of higher education between the countries of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP States) and the European Union. More precisely, the objective of the Programme is to promote regional and multilateral networking between higher education institutions in the perspective of mutual interest. Global objective The main goal of this assignment is to ascertain the relevance of the Programme to meet the real needs in the higher education sector in the ACP countries and, based on the lessons learned, to formulate for discussion (with the relevant stakeholders) a new Edulink proposal to be financed from the 10th EDF intra-ACP envelope. Specific objectives, inter alia: - Assessment of the appropriateness of the Programme design over the three calls to respond to the needs of the Higher Education Institutions in the ACP countries. - Assessment of the awarding process: analysis of the outcome of the awarding process and to what extent this has led to a balanced answer to each of the three levels defined to strengthen: - Management/administration - Academic and - Research and Technology - Moreover, the ACP Secretariat and the Commission services are interested to have an opinion on whether the processes used to implement the Programme have led to a well diversified geographical coverage in terms of applicants and partners. - In case of thematic or other imbalances, assessment of the reasons why certain areas might have been neglected. - Taking into account the number of applications received, the number of grants awarded and the fact that there is now a specific ACP Science and Technology Programme, it is necessary to consider whether there is a case to keep the Research and Technology level under a new EDULINK Programme - The practicality of the composition of the partnerships and the extent to which they serve the purpose should be looked into. - Assessment of the programme implementation modalities - Opinion on how the processes, upstream to the call, can be strengthened leading to a better understanding of the requirements by the potential applicants - A review of the formulation of the call is expected, in view of facilitating the selection of networks which can potentially be sustainable namely through the acceptance as eligible costs of activities that pursue that purpose - Attention should be given to the relevance and/or interest of renewing ongoing projects in the next call for proposals - An analysis of the cost effectiveness of the inclusion of the component aiming at "discussing significant aspects of ACP university systems with the ultimate aim of bringing about improvements through the sharing of good practices" under the new EDULINK programme, taking into consideration the resources available for the next phase of the programme

Start date: 2009-09-01

End date: 2010-09-30