TY - CONF A1 - Schmidt, Wolfram A1 - Uzoegbo, H.C. A1 - Priebe, Nsesheye Susan A1 - Kühne, Hans-Carsten A1 - Rogge, Andreas A2 - Uzoegbo, H.C. A2 - Schmidt, Wolfram T1 - Experiences in an African-European-cooperation project: strengthening research capacity in cement and concrete in Africa T2 - ACCTA - International conference on advances in cement and concrete technology in Africa 2013 (Proceedings) N2 - This report is based on a three-year experience as coordinator of the ACP-EU funded SPIN project. The project involved eight African and three European partners. Practical and unforeseeable problems are addressed that occurred during the project implementation and ways how they were successfully solved are reported. The major problems in many African institutions were administrations that are not used to work in multi-national consortia and a lack of institutional support for the African researchers. In Europe a misjudgement of the African boundary conditions as well as inflexible administrations caused problems. Finally the funding scheme did not always allow to easily overcome the high number of unexpected practical problems. A major deficit identified during the project was a general trend in Africa to underestimate the role of research for the development of the continent. Most universities focus on teaching applied sciences, which is without doubt important to cover the market need for qualified staff in the rapidly growing African industries. However, this makes it unattractive for highly qualified performers to conduct research on the continent. Furthermore this leads to the situation that the curricula can only contain second hand knowledge. In order to attract international high level researchers, it is suggested to install multi-national regional excellence research centres that only promote PhD and post-doc research on a level that can cope with highest international excellence. High level research is often perceived as not capable of focusing on immediate actual problems that many African economies have to cope with.. However, it is considered to be very sustainable in terms of autonomy and mastering future challenges. T2 - ACCTA - International conference on advances in cement and concrete technology in Africa 2013 CY - Johannesburg, South Africa DA - 28.01.2013 PY - 2013 UR - https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-bam/frontdoor/index/index/docId/27762 AN - OPUS4-27762 SN - 978-3-9815360-3-4 N1 - Geburtsname von Priebe, Nsesheye Susan: Msinjili, N. S. - Birth name of Priebe, Nsesheye Susan: Msinjili, N. S. SP - 1177 EP - 1184 AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany