"The overall aim of this project is to develop a joint training and cutting edge research program based on “state of the-art”, technologies that will strengthen the research partnership between the University of Pretoria-CSIR in South Africa, the Newcastle University, UK and VIB Ghent, Belgium in an area of common research interest, legume improvement, which is of major agronomic importance both in the EU and in Africa. This aim will be achieved through short and longer-term periods of staff exchange between the African and European partners and networking activities between the three institutions. The ultimate goal of this project is to achieve more rapid progress in advancing current knowledge and concepts through combined endeavour leading to joint-author high citation index publications and similar outputs. In this way, we will establish a long-term research cooperation between the three institutions based on active technology and scientific knowledge application and transfer. The scientific aim of the research exchanges is to identify and characterize genes and proteins that control in legume nodule development and senescence under optimal and stress conditions. A comparison of these processes will not only allow us to gain an improved fundamental understanding of nodule biology but also advance current knowledge that can be ultimately be used for the improvement of legume crops in African Agriculture."