Around 30 experts from Africa and Europe gathered in Bled, Slovenia, for the conference Co-creating Knowledge with Africa: Towards a New Strategic Framework for Higher Education Cooperation, jointly organised by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and CMEPIUS Slovenia. The event formed part of an ongoing dialogue on the future of higher education cooperation between Africa and Europe, following a previous DAAD-led discussion in Berlin on how academic partnerships can be rethought in a changing global context. 

The Bled meeting brought together higher education leaders, policy experts, practitioners, and representatives of academic organisations to examine what equitable cooperation means in practice. Rather than treating partnership as a formal declaration, participants focused on the real conditions needed for fairness, mutual benefit, and long-term impact. Discussions addressed persistent challenges such as unequal access to funding, imbalances in decision-making, short project cycles, and the need to ensure that all partners have a meaningful role in shaping priorities and outcomes. 

A central theme of the conference was the co-creation of knowledge. Participants stressed that future cooperation should not be based on one-way models of support, but on shared responsibility, mutual learning, and the recognition of diverse knowledge systems. This included a strong emphasis on indigenous and local knowledge as a valuable basis for research, teaching, and responses to global challenges. 

The conference also aimed to produce practical ideas for fairer cooperation frameworks. One important outcome was the development of a jointly authored statement paper setting out a shared vision for sustainable, equitable higher education partnerships. The event therefore represented not only a continuation of Africa–Europe dialogue, but also a concrete step towards more balanced, inclusive, and transformative academic cooperation.