Academics Without Borders/Universitaires sans frontières (AWB) is pleased to announce that the University of British Columbia will be AWB’s host institution for the next three years.  We are deeply grateful to UBC for their leadership, and to McMaster University for serving as host institution for the past five years.

AWB, a Canada-based, volunteer-driven non-profit organization that connects academics in the developed world with colleges and universities in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), helps to strengthen and expand higher education through capacity-building projects.   Importantly, all projects are initiated by the partner institutions, ensuring that faculty, staff and students fully engage in their projects and to sustain the results long-term.  The projects span the full range of post-secondary research, teaching and service activities such as helping to design curriculum for a Medical Physics program at the Meru University of Science and Technology in Kenya, developing support services for students with disabilities at the State Islamic University in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, and coaching faculty in effective graduate student supervision at Uganda’s Mbarara University of Science and Technology.

“AWB is honoured to collaborate with UBC as our host institution.  UBC has a deep commitment to international partnerships, as reflected in the impactful and diverse research and teaching activities by UBC’s faculty and students in the developing world.  Among its many leadership roles, UBC was the first university in Canada to develop a strategy under the Global Access Principles to facilitate global access to its technologies in the area of health and protection of the environment,” said Nancy Gallini, AWB’s Executive Director.  “Through this collaboration between AWB and UBC, the entire AWB Network of universities and colleges is strengthened in their commitment to knowledge-sharing with colleagues in LMIC post-secondary institutions, according to their expressed needs and priorities.”

UBC Provost and Vice-President Academic, Gage Averill, explains that this partnership aligns well with the University’s prominent orientation to global issues. “UBC’s engagement with the AWB Network is a meaningful expression of our shared belief that universities can be an important force in promoting global advancement by collaborating with our partner institutions of higher education in the developing world as they strive to increase the capacity and quality of their programs,” he says. “UBC is proud to serve as the host institution for AWB for the next three years, and we extend our thanks to past host, McMaster University, for their deep commitment to promoting the role of higher education in global development over the past five years.”