In a bid to deepen our partnership and exchange best practices on sustainable international collaboration, a five-member delegation from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) participated in the Erasmus+ KA171 Staff Week hosted by Technische Universität Berlin (TU Berlin), Germany, from June 22 to 26, 2026. The programme brought together staff from KNUST and six other Sub-Saharan African universities to explore strategies for building impactful international partnerships.
The mobility was undertaken under the Erasmus+ KA171 International Credit Mobility programme, which supports staff and student exchanges between European universities and partner institutions outside Europe, fostering collaboration in teaching, research, and institutional capacity building.
The KNUST delegation comprised Prof. Mrs. Augustina Angelina Sylverken, Vice-Dean of the International Programmes Office (IPO); Dr. Oliver Kornyo of the Department of Computer Science; Mr. Charles Asamoah-Boateng and Mr. Isaac Berko, both Deputy Registrars; and Ms. Ernestine Oheneba Danso, Collaborations and Partnerships Officer at the IPO.
Throughout the week, participants engaged in discussions on the Africa Charter on Transformative Research Collaborations and examined issues of equity, funding, legal frameworks, and shared responsibility in international partnerships. As KNUST's IPO representatives, Prof. Mrs. Sylverken and Ms. Oheneba Danso met with counterparts from the partner universities to reflect on experiences under the Erasmus+ KA171 programme and later held a strategic meeting with Ms. Patricia Szendro Teran to map out the next phase of the KNUST–TU Berlin partnership. The programme concluded with a visit to the Einstein Center Digital Future and a joint evaluation session.
In parallel, Dr. Kornyo held discussions with Prof. Stefan Tai and Prof. Odej Kao, leading to opportunities for fully funded PhD training, joint courses in cloud computing and blockchain prototyping, and collaborative research in federated learning, data protection, and distributed energy systems, with DAAD and Erasmus+ funding under consideration.
The delegation described the Staff Week as a valuable platform for strengthening relationships and identifying practical avenues for long-term collaboration. KNUST is now pursuing follow-up initiatives, including a pilot project, a co-supervised thesis, a joint course, and expanded KA171 exchanges with TU Berlin. The delegation expressed appreciation to the Vice-Chancellor for the opportunity and acknowledged the continued support of the International Programmes Office in advancing KNUST's internationalisation agenda.
