BMU | Academic co-operation

The BMU's Academic Cooperation Palestine Project (ACPP) enhances the educational and technical capacity of Palestinian researchers through educational partnerships between local and international partners.

The ACPP is a platform for North-South cooperation on academic and research projects. The platform’s partners jointly develop programs targeting Palestinian professional researchers in order to implement both knowledge and skills. The overarching goal of this platform is to build local capacity for research and advocacy.

Through field research in the West Bank, the BMU became aware of a gap between Palestinian research and advocacy. While plenty of research projects gather information, the significance of the data is not always articulated to an outside audience. ACPP projects strive to fulfil this gap by optimising research methods and channelling that data for effective advocacy.

The ACPP's flagship project is the development and delivery of the Postgraduate Certificate in Research and Advocacy (PCRA). The PCRA targets Palestinian researchers and policy-makers to enhance their existing skill sets, such as geographic information systems (GIS) and international law. Currently being developed among partners, the PCRA will be a training course within a larger programme studying land management in Palestine.

Other ACPP projects include Thematic Cartography Training (TCT). In cooperation with its partners, the BMU provides TCT courses to enhance the ability various organisations to manufacture high-quality advocacy materials through thematic maps. Maps displaying social trends through visually-striking tools allow organisations to reach a wider audience, thus more effectively promote change. The TCT course will later contribute to our PCRA course.

The TCT programme also contains a Training-of-Trainers (ToT) course, teaching representatives from other organisations how to teach thematic cartography. By training other trainers, thematic cartography courses become more sustainable over the long term and develop a community of practice with wider outreach into communities.

Postgraduate Certificate in Research and Advocacy
	The ACPP's partners are combining their specialties and developing the Postgraduate Certificate in Research and Advocacy (PCRA). The PCRA aims at reinforcing the research and advocacy knowledge of Palestinian governmental and non-governmental researchers and policy-makers.
Thematic Cartography Training
	These trainings boost the ability of various organisations to document developments in the West Bank and to enhance their advocacy. The two-day trainings instruct the theoretical framework and the practical skills necessary to deliver visual advocacy through statistical mapping techniques. The trainings use open source computer applications, making the trainings sustainable when compared to the high cost of similar applications.
Capacity-building
	Transferring knowledge is a cornerstone for achieving the BMU's objective of building local capacity. The BMU, coordinating with its ACPP partners, empowers local communities by offering trainings and other educational opportunities that focus on creating more engaging, diverse, and sustainable research and advocacy projects.
ACPP partners
	The BMU liaises among international and local Palestinian partners in the governmental, non-governmental and academic sectors. Learn more about each partner's role in the ACPP and how these different organisations coordinate their contributions to joint projects to create sustainable synergies.
Events
	See the BMU’s recent and upcoming events, including trainings, media briefings, and publications.