Knowledge Center for Advancing Development through Higher Education

The Knowledge Center on Higher Education for Advancing Development through Higher Education (commonly referred to as The Knowledge Center) worked to create, curate, analyze and share knowledge about capacity building and institutional transformation in higher education for development. The Knowledge Center is an initiative of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU). Based in Washington, D.C., the Knowledge Center’s activities provided policy makers, donors, researchers, and practitioners with evidence-based approaches to inform investments in human and institutional capacity development of institutes of higher education in developing countries. Our purpose is to develop knowledge in support of strengthening international higher education’s capacity to address socioeconomic development challenges facing the developing world and improving APLU member university engagement with these higher education institutions.

Our Mission

Our mission is to improve development assistance to higher education around the world. We pursue this mission because we believe that institutions of higher education are vital to development, innovation, and poverty reduction.

To achieve this mission we:

• Create, curate, analyze and share knowledge about higher education capacity building and the impact of higher education on development;
• Engage with higher education leaders, policy, donor, practitioner and other stakeholder partners in policy dialogues to increase and improve development assistance to higher education.

Our Strengths

Our mission is pursued in the context of the Center’s unique qualities: APLU’s location in Washington, DC; the extensive experience and knowledge of our team, Advisory Board, and APLU membership; and our ability to tap into the sizeable expertise of the higher education community in the United States and other parts of the world.

Our Impact

APLU’s Knowledge Center for Advancing Development through Higher Education contributes to development through a focus on higher education institutions and systems.

The Knowledge Center completed two projects funded by USAID. The first is a report on African higher education, identifying challenges and opportunities and providing recommendations for future investment.

The second major report of the Knowledge Center was on good practices in leveraging long-term training for institutional capacity strengthening. This report was in part based on the outcomes of a webinar series focused on good practices that brought together training program implementers from around the world for in-depth discussions on specific topics.