Cape Town, 22/10/2025: From 9–14 October, representatives of the CBTA took part in the regional workshops of the CESAR (Community Engagement in Higher Education in the Southern Africa Region) project at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) in Cape Town. While the first part of the event took place at the Hotel School Granger Bay Campus, the venue changed to the SARETEC Belville Campus on Monday. The workshops brought together project partners from Flensburg University of Applied Sciences (FUAS), Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST) and the CPUT to exchange experiences and strengthen community engagement across higher education institutions.
The CBTA team – Prof. Dr. Dirk Mueller, Stefanie Jordt and Martin Kuehn – actively contributed throughout the week. The opening sessions focused on communication, dissemination, and project reporting, led by Martin Kuehn, who presented strategies for internal coordination and digital collaboration tools within CESAR. Stefanie Jordt supported the discussion on planning the next project phase, while Dirk Mueller contributed to sessions on programme design and evidence-based reporting.
Subsequent days explored stakeholder engagement and management collaboration, with interactive group work and partnership mapping exercises involving government, industry, and community representatives. The discussions highlighted how closer alignment between university management and local stakeholders can enhance the social impact of community engagement initiatives.
The research and dissemination day, coordinated by Dirk Mueller, placed strong emphasis on transdisciplinary research and the development of abstracts for the upcoming “Engaged Research Forum on SDG Partnerships.” Participants refined joint research ideas addressing SDG-related topics and presented draft abstracts for collaborative publications.
A particularly memorable part of the week was the excursion to the !Khwa ttu Nature Reserve on the heritage, history and cultural settlement day, where participants engaged with local community leaders to learn about heritage preservation, cultural identity, and inclusive community development. This field visit illustrated how community engagement can connect academic learning with local traditions and sustainable livelihoods.
The final two days focused on skills development and social entrepreneurship. Martin Kuehn led sessions on integrating technology and AI into teaching and research, while Dirk Mueller and Stefanie Jordt co-facilitated workshops on understanding and strengthening the social entrepreneurship ecosystem. Together with collegues from CPUT and NUST, they guided participants through group work sessions on embedding social innovation and entrepreneurship into ongoing university projects.
Topics across the week ranged from integrating the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into curricula and research agendas to enhancing university-community collaboration through service learning and social innovation. The workshop series concluded with joint reflections and presentations of institutional strategies, underlining the shared commitment of all partners to advancing SDGs 6, 7, 11, and 17.
Funded by the DAAD under the SDG Partnerships Programme, CESAR continues to foster cooperation between academia, industry, and local communities in Southern Africa – promoting capacity building, knowledge exchange, and sustainable partnerships across borders.
