Researching Africa and the development of the Africa Hub Website

The aim of the workshop was to facilitate the exchange of information on common interests, research and teaching activities, and identify opportunities for future collaboration; joint research projects, funding applications, and teaching cooperation; collaboration with African universities, student exchange programs, and distance learning.

A virtual platform that brings together UoB-wide initiatives focused on Africa, called ‘Africa Hub’ (Ahub), is in development. http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/activity/africa-hub/index.aspx

Ahub already displays the research of a network of about thirty UoB scholars in fifteen different departments, with a broad range of interests, who are working on Africa: its geography, society, arts, history, flora, fauna, diseases, problems. The next stage in the development of Ahub will promote the outward dissemination of Africa-related knowledge produced at UoB. It will create, and recurrently update, video-podcasts and texts that illustrate ways to ‘think Africa differently’ across the World Wide Web’s global outreach. Collaboration of academics across departments will lead to the identification of themes of common interest and ongoing research that can be foregrounded on the Ahub’s website.