Higher Education, Internationalisation and Global Development

An Irish Case Study

European engagement with development cooperation in the Global South has many modalities and there is only agreement that we do not have the answers yet. Here we present an Irish case study of interuniversity collaboration with a number of Southern partners to build research capacity through partnership. We provide first a critical introduction to the internationalisation debates which frames our presentation of the various aspects of the Irish African Partnership. This is not posed as a model of best practice but simply as one approach which has developed a philosophy through trial and error. This case study is then related to the broader field of European engagements with development cooperation in the field of higher education. We stress two elements: knowledge is global and so also must be the development imperative; our approach to research building also needs to be forward looking (Foresight) and not looking backwards to what might have worked well in the past, usually somewhere else.