In 2024, ARES launched a new study with the primary objective of reporting on partnership practices in the context of academic cooperation with a view to improving procedures, policies and practices. This approach will enable ARES to fully integrate its intervention into the framework of balanced, equitable, respectful, profitable and rewarding partnership relations for all parties involved.
The purpose of this study is to examine equity in the context of cooperation aimed at reducing power asymmetries and dependencies, through the co-creation and co-development of solutions, as well as mutual respect, recognition/valuation of the contributions of each partner, valuing diversity and equal opportunities.
This ambitious mission has been entrusted to a team of three academic experts by the Steering Committee (which includes a member of the VLIR-UOS), specially set up by the ARES International Cooperation Commission. s: Ms Ndeye Fatou Ngom , professor at the Ecole Polytechnique de Thiès (Senegal), Mr Yvon Englert (lead expert) , professor emeritus and former rector of the Université Libre de Bruxelles and Mr Placide Mumbembele Sanger , professor at the University of Kinshasa (DRC).
To carry out this assignment, the team will analyse reference documents, search the international literature with a view to benchmarking and conduct a large number of individual and group interviews with stakeholders involved in ARES projects in Belgium and in partner countries. These activities will be supplemented by field visits and meetings organised with our partners in Cambodia in March 2025 and in Benin in May 2025. The final report, due in September 2025, will be published on our website. ARES plans to organise, with partners from the JSF HES4SD (ITM and VLIR-UOS), an event on equitable partnerships in early 2026.
