NORPART - Collaborative learning in biodiversity: excellence in education through two-way North-South mobility

This SIU NORPART funded project brings together expertise in biodiversity and systematics from Norway and selected countries in eastern Africa to create two-way mobility in teaching and student research.

Image may contain: Flower, Plant, Terrestrial plant, Petal, Flowerpot.

About the project

This project aims to significantly improve the quality of plant biodiversity education at University of Oslo (UiO) and partner institutions outside Norway. The project partners at Addis Ababa University, Kenyatta University, Makerere University, University of Zimbabwe and UiO have a long history of fruitful collaboration with each other. Through two-way student and staff mobility we will be able to benefit from each other’s strengths and make lasting improvements to all partners existing curricula in plant biodiversity, and specifically by:

  1. Two way mobility of students between partner institutions outside Norway and UiO, to take courses not given at home institutions and to do fieldwork for their MSc and PhD projects
  2. Developing a new common course in plant conservation that will be taught at all partner institutions also after the project period
  3. Improve the quality of existing courses at partner institutions by knowledge sharing and preparing new (online) learning resources
  4. Two-way mobility of researchers for capacity building and guest lecturing. Participation of relevant groups outside the university will be encouraged in some of the courses, also to provide more hands-on experience for regular students. Through this approach students participating in project courses and activities will be prepared for competitive careers in academia, as well as other governmental and non-governmental organizations working with management and conservation of biodiversity.

Financing

This project is funded by SIU NORPART.

Cooperation

Department of Plant Biology and Biodiveristy Management, College of Natural Sciences, Addis Ababa University

Department of Plant Sciences, School of Pure and Applied Sciences, Kenyatta University

Makerere University Herbarium, College of Natural Sciences, Makerere University

Department of Biological Sciences, University of Zimbabwe

Integrative Systematics of Plant and Fungi (ISOP), Natural History Museum, University of Oslo

Plant Evolution and DNA Metabarcoding (PET), Natural History Museum, University of Oslo

Tags: Norpart
Published Apr. 12, 2022 8:26 AM - Last modified Apr. 12, 2022 11:34 AM

Participants

Detailed list of participants