Dear Vice Chancellor, African systems of higher education are historically diverse with limited mutual recognition among individual countries. Global challenges, however, increasingly require a joint continental response and increased international mobility. Confronting this dilemma and responding to the express desire of Member States to work towards facilitating mutual recognition of academic qualifications and enhancing intra-African academic mobility, the African Union Commission developed the African Union Harmonisation Strategy for Higher Education. The implementation of this Harmonisation Strategy is supported by the Revised Arusha Convention and covers, among other things, the design of common curriculum development frameworks to enable comparability and equivalence of learning outcomes in African universities. The African Union's Agenda 2063 goes beyond this objective and aims to build and expand an African knowledge society through transformation and investment in universities, science, technology, research and innovation; and through the harmonisation of education standards and mutual recognition of academic and professional qualifications. It is in this context that the African Union Commission (AUC), the European Union (EU) and the Association of African Universities (AAU) work closely together on the Harmonisation and Tuning initiative as an integral part of the Joint Africa EU Strategy'. Tuning is an internationally recognised method to (re-) design, develop, implement and evaluate study programmes, develop cycle (level) descriptors for a growing number of subject areas and develop new teaching and learning methods. The process has a direct impact on recognition, quality assurance and capacity building.' In the last four years, the Tuning methodology has been applied to curricula in five subject areas among a group of 60 African universities from 29 countries. The subject areas were: Agricultural sciences, Civil engineering, Mechanical engineering, Medicine and Teacher education. Meeting across the continent over a period of four years, partners in the first phase of the project identified currently required competences for graduates from each of these subject   areas, drew up degree profiles for them and discussed how study credits could be allocated in a way that was acceptable to all partners in each of the groups.i" Phase II The EU, the AUC, the AAU and the University of Deusto are now preparing to take the initiative into a second phase, where the designed changes of Phase I are to be implemented, the number of benefiting universities is to be doubled, and the number of participating African countries is to be expanded as much as possible. Three more subject areas will also be added, namely: Applied Geology, Economics and Higher Education Management. Through this letter, we would like to encourage your university to apply for participation in tills second phase of the project. We will be selecting approximately 60 African universities to add to the current 60 involved, so a total of 120 African universities with an even spread across the subject areas and as broad a geographical coverage as possible will be involved. Participation in the project meetings in terms of costs related to travel and subsistence are fully financed by the European Commission. We need one assigned and appropriate contact person for the project from each selected university who will participate in five meetings over the course of three years. The selected universities will be asked to carry out some project tasks between meetings and we expect a commitment to implement the results towards the end of the project. Participating in this initiative will be an opportunity for the university to develop competence¬based curricula, build capacity in teaching and learning and quality enhancement, define common and agreed study credits and assessment tools, develop joint agreements between universities and participate in both a continental and international network. The deadline for applying is 23 May 2015. Selection of the participating universities will take place in June 2015, with the aim of having the first general meeting in October 2015. Full application details and selection criteria are available at: www.tuningafrica.org Yours sincerely, : http://www.tuningafrica. org/images/public files/tuning20africa202014 20engl. pdf http://www.bc.edu/research/cihe/inheafeditorial/archives/Jan20i2.html