Higher Education Partnerships1 between African and European Universities : Towards an Equitable and Empowering Framework

Purpose: Partnerships and collaborations between African and European universities and other higher education institutions, in some (African) countries, dates back to the colonial era, while in some others, partnerships were established immediately after independence as a strategy for capacity building of few available national universities, hitherto part of the colonial superstructure transformed into national universities for training required skilled high-level manpower. Although the literature on partnerships and collaboration between African and European universities is informative, the critical question is what constitutes an empowering and equitable partnership between African and European universities or other higher education institutions? Design/Methods: This study adopted a narrative literature review to propose for equitable and empowering partnerships framework(s) between African and European universities and scholars which will promote equity and empower African universities.Findings: Findings revealed that key to equitable and empowering university partnership is to have transformational partnerships, cost sharing and grants matching, transparency and mutual accountability, communication, mutual understanding of cultural values and contexts, equality of decision making, and sustainability of partnerships.Originality:This paper contributes to the emerging scholarly literature by proposing a framework for what is considered as empowering and equitable partnerships between African and European universities