Association of Commonwealth Universities

The ACU is a member organisation with over 400 members in over 40 countries across the Commonwealth. As a result, we can provide access to a primed and active university member network, within the context of higher education and international development, as well as organisational expertise in convening, policy and advocacy, communication and programme design and delivery.  

The ACU is experienced in designing and implementing training and capacity strengthening initiatives and we have been at the forefront of capacity strengthening activities in higher education for over 60 years. In recent years, the ACU has focused on delivering innovative capacity strengthening programmes that enable more effective research-led climate and environment action within university contexts. An example is the Ocean Country Partnership Programme (OCPP), supporting world-class research and innovation in the areas of marine pollution, sustainable seafood and marine biodiversity and as a result, we can support ocean science calls.

We are a key policy voice within the Commonwealth, supporting policy coherence between universities and national governments, contributing to global frameworks such as the Paris Agreement and the SDG 2030 agenda, as well as actively engaging with UNESCO, the UNFCCC, the Commonwealth Secretariat and CHOGM. We can also provide effective dissemination platforms through digital channels, ensuring research outputs reach decision-makers. Through this expertise, the ACU can partner on relevant governance and knowledge exchange calls.  

The ACU has and is currently supporting the Food and Nutrition Security and Sustainable Agriculture (FNSSA) partnership through several Horizon Europe funded programmes. From 2019-2022 the ACU was task lead for Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) of the Long-term Europe-Africa Research and Innovation Partnership for Food and Nutrition Security and Sustainable Agriculture (LEAP4FNSSA). Following on from this, we are the work package lead for MEL in the LEAP4FNSSA successor project, Consortium Europe-Africa for Research and Innovation on Food Systems Transformation (CEA FIRST). To complement this, we are a project partner in Strengthening Evidence-Based Policy Practice for Sustainable Food Systems (StEPPFoSS), linking the activities of the FNSSA partnership and those of the Pan-African Network for Economic Analysis of Policies (PANAP), task lead for the MEL framework. As a result, the ACU can contribute to relevant food, nutrition and agriculture calls.