Dynamic Progression
The cooperation between Senegal and the United Kingdom in the field of higher education and research is showing encouraging signs of dynamic progression. Relations between the two countries in this area began to take shape in the 1990s with the signing of a memorandum of understanding between Cheikh Anta Diop University (UCAD) in Dakar and the University of Portsmouth, but this document fell into disuse.
For several years, the University of Portsmouth regularly hosted a language assistant (for French) from UCAD, before British immigration policy restrictions hindered this collaboration. UCAD and the University of Portsmouth then worked together on an oral history project in the early 2000s.
An attempt to revitalise this cooperation was the subject of a working visit by the Embassy to Portsmouth on 19 December 2016, following which it was agreed to explore the University of Portsmouth’s offer to train Senegalese technicians in the maritime security sub-sector and to support the establishment of the National Institute of Oil and Gas (INPG).
Transnational Education
These relocation projects, known in English as “transnational education”, occupy a prominent place in the Embassy’s recent efforts in the field of university cooperation, alongside work to strengthen collaborative research.
These two areas of cooperation have also helped to structure discussions initiated with Cardiff University during the Embassy’s visit there on 18 September 2019. Meetings with university officials led to an agreement on the need to strengthen collaborative research and student mobility.
The extensive benchmarking mission carried out by INPG in the United Kingdom as part of the start of its activities made it possible to make contact with the universities of Dundee (Scotland), Imperial College (London), Manchester and Heriot-Watt (Edinburgh, Scotland). A mission by the Embassy to Heriot-Watt University on 12 April 2019 also resulted in concrete proposals that the Minister of Higher Education, Research and Innovation is in favour of.
The ongoing discussions, which could be concluded during a visit that Heriot-Watt University plans to make to Dakar, focus in particular on the relocation, to Senegal, of master’s degrees awarded by this university. In the same vein, the Embassy has also been in discussions since August 2019 with the University of London, which is also proposing to relocate some programmes to Senegal in partnership with Senegalese public or private universities.
In addition, this visit provided an opportunity to take stock of the mid-term progress of the “BILI” project, named after the online platform for the implementation of the “English Connects” programme, which aims to strengthen the language skills of Senegalese and British students in English and French respectively. This programme, which stems from the UK’s post-Brexit strategy in French-speaking Africa, benefits from a financial package of £3.9 million.
Senegal is the first country in French-speaking Africa to benefit from this programme (pilot phase), thanks to the Memorandum of Understanding signed between the British Council and the Senegalese Ministry of Higher Education during the visit to Dakar on 29 April 2019 of the Honourable Jeremy Hunt, then British Foreign Secretary. In concrete terms, the standard BILI project lasts six (6) weeks, during which students interact both on the BILI platform and on social media. Consideration is being given to expanding this project at the national level, which would allow a greater number of students to be reached.
Student Mobility
Finally, it should be emphasised that links in the field of higher education and research are also being forged beyond governmental relations.
A good part of the existing academic and student mobility is, moreover, attributable to individual initiatives. In terms of student mobility, for example, apart from the one-year scholarships offered annually under the Chevening programme and those offered directly by British universities to international students, the Senegalese government’s scholarship of excellence programme hardly benefits Senegalese students in the United Kingdom, due, among other things, to the very high level of tuition fees.
There are currently around a hundred Senegalese students enrolled in British universities. As for researcher mobility, it should be noted that collaborations are difficult to map, but universities may have this data at their level.
For example, contacts with Imperial College London have revealed that between 2015 and 2017, there were twenty-six (26) joint scientific publications between researchers from this university and those from Senegal.