Building Academic Partnerships for Economic Development (BAPED)

With “Building Academic Partnerships for Economic Development” (BAPED) the South African - Belgian Cooperation wants to contribute to the economic development of South Africa through the establishment of a network between South African (SA) and Belgian (BE) academic institutions. 5. Transnet; 6. The Belgium Campus. The programme keeps a particular focus on supporting the South African New Generation of Academics Programme (nGAP). Because of time constraints of the programme, which has a maximum duration of 31 months, there is little opportunity for the funding of “traditional” academic degrees, such as Bachelors, Masters or PhD, the duration of which is much longer than two years. Therefor the programme will focus on the institutional strengthening of the academic institutions through the funding of “accelerated” Masters or PhDs for academic staff. “Traditional” Bachelors, Masters and PhDs can be funded provided that the additional funding needed for the years after the programme has ended, can be guaranteed by the SA partner. The objective of the scholarship programme is to build the foundations for longstanding partnerships between South African and Belgian institutions aimed at improving business-oriented skills development, training and research in a limited number of priority areas that are key for the economic development of the country, such as: 1. ICT: with a particular focus on the training of highly qualified and “employable” IT professionals; 2. Health: with a particular focus on the training of biostatisticians, the availability of which is key for South Africa to strengthen its health, medical and clinical research; 3. The maritime sector: with a particular focus on the development of tailor made trainings aimed at responding to the needs of the South-African maritime sector; 4. Others: to be identified during implementation. Six SA Beneficiary Institutions (BI) have been selected: 1. The SA Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET); 2. The SA Department of Science and Technology (DST); 3. The SA Medical Research Council (SAMRC); 4. Transport Education Training Authority (TETA);

Foundations for long-standing partnerships between South African and Belgian research and training institutions, aimed at improving business oriented skills development, training and research, are built

1. Skills, competences and capacities are developed through scholarships for Bachelor, Master and PhD studies; 2. Skills, competences and capacities are strengthened through scholarships for national and international mobility and short term trainings; 3. Academic partnerships between South Africa and Belgium are fostered through the organisation of knowledge sharing initiatives.