Placing respect, dignity, and care at the centre of global partnerships

How do we centre and create long-lasting partnerships between researchers, universities and administrators across the European and African continents? And how do we understand these partnerships? These were some of the questions raised at the annual Southern Africa Nordic Centre (SANORD) conference held on the beautiful campus of Aarhus University from August 12 to August 15.

By Line Richter 

The annual Southern Africa Nordic-Centre (SANORD) conference 2025 brought together 230 researchers, administrators and managers from 39 universities who engaged in a variety of discussions under the theme “Knowledge Economies in a Changing World”.

Knowledge and knowledge production are under pressure from a rise in misinformation and information overload. In a changing geo-political landscape, where alliances are being re-shaped, it seems ever more pressing for researchers and universities to transcend what divides them in order to come together to produce knowledge that can address global and local challenges.

Transformative partnerships
At the heart of the discussions at the conference was the role of partnerships. This was poignantly addressed in a keynote by Divine Fuh, the director of HUMA – Institute for Humanities in Africa at the University of Cape Town where he is also associate professor and head of the Department of Anthropology. Fuh invited the audience to think about partnerships not as equal nor in terms of equity, but rather as transformative. He argued that it is time to shift the gaze to a point where Africa is the central and not the peripheral vision, and he made the case for collaborating with the intention to transform, to centre respect and to centre dignity in partnerships.

Read here the Africa Charter for transformative collaborations, co-created by leading higher education and research bodies and constituencies in Africa. It sets out key principles and aspirations for fostering transformative research cillaborations with the continent.

Partnerships are about people
A highlight of the conference was the joint keynote address by Sylvie Namwase, School of Law, Makerere University, Uganda, and Ole Wæver, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. They discussed the challenges faced in the quest to achieve equality, equity and justice in research partnerships. They are long term collaborators on Danida-funded research projects and they shared their experiences and considerations on how to face these challenges and achieve equity. One of the key takeaways is that we need to prioritise and cultivate respectful and dignified relations with each other. As Namwase said,

“It is important to create long-lasting human relationships. We have been very intentional about this, for example, by giving gifts and sharing food. This is a good way to connect with people. These are things that keep us together, even if people in the team have moved on. These are the things that can provide equity. It is the people of the institutions more than the institutions that are the vehicles of equity.”

Careful partnerships
In a final roundtable discussion, the SANORD Board Chair and Director of Durban University of Technology, Lavern Samuels, presented caring as a vital component in partnerships: “The issue of caring for each other is central for how we should see our collaboration. It is about caring about others and their wellbeing. About seeing the human condition progress.”

In her closing remarks,  Professor of Anthropology at Aarhus University, Lotte Meinert, suggested that it might be time to talk about careful collaborations. Careful, both in the sense of caring for each other in partnerships, and in the sense of paying attention to detail in the work done in and with the partnerships.

SANORD is a network of universities designed to further academic cooperation between the Southern African and Nordic regions, and to strengthen the capacity of all member institutions to address local and global challenges of innovation and development. The founding universities are from three Southern African and four Nordic countries: Aarhus University (Denmark), University of Bergen (Norway), University of Malawi (Malawi), University of Namibia (Namibia), University of Turku (Finland), Uppsala University (Sweden), and University of the Western Cape (South Africa).

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