The network is a collaboration of four universities in Southern Africa and four in Western Europe ,which aim at true partnership in order to develop a sustainable education and research capacity at the participating universities .The concept of Unitwin was officially launched by Unesco's Director General dr.Federico Mayor in 1990

The network consists of the folowing eight Universities:

University of Mozambique,Maputo

University of Western Cape,Bellive,Rsa

Univesity of Namibia,Windhoek

Universiteit Utrecht,The Netherlands

Lunds Universitiet,Luand,Sweden

Ruhruniversitat Bochum,Germany

Universidade doPorto,Portugal

UNESCO-CHAIRS

An important feature of the network of the Utrecht Unitwin Network is the establishment of Unesco-chairs within the network at the partner Universities.These chairs are the cores of centres of excellence and foster scientific advancement through high-level research and teaching.In southern Africa the following Unesco-Chairs are established according to the four clusters of disciplines:

• chair in mathematics and science education, at the university of the Western Cape in South Africa.
• chair of human rights and law at the university of Namibia.
• chair in environment at the universidade eduardo mondlane in Mozambique.
• chair in immunology and infectious diseases at the university of Zimbabwe.

At Utrecht university a Unesco-Africa Chair has been established.This chair will also serve the other Northern partners.The Chair-holders will come from the Southern African partners of the network.