The consortium for our new project to establish a unique network for doctoral students and early career researchers in African and European countries – DocLinks – are meeting at the ACU today to discuss the initial stages of the project.

DocLinks, which is supported by the Erasmus Mundus programme of the European Union, will raise awareness of doctoral education, create the first-ever single publicity channel for resources relevant to PhD study, and establish contact and exchange between PhD students and early career researchers in Africa and Europe.

At a reception yesterday to mark the launch of the project, Professor John Wood (Secretary General of the ACU) welcomed the ACU's partners in the consortium. He said 'DocLinks is about transformation: how we train people to lead research groups. We need to put resources into academic staff'.

The project consortium comprises:

• The Association of Commonwealth Universities, United Kingdom (Coordinator)
• Eurodoc, The European Council of Doctoral Candidates and Junior Researchers, Belgium
• French Speaking University Agency, Belgium
• Irish African Partnership for Research Capacity Building, Ireland
• Finnish University Partnership for International Development – UniPID/University of Jyväskylä, Finland
• University of Botswana, Botswana
• African Academy of Sciences, Kenya

For more information, please visit the DocLinks project page.