BACKGROUND Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 17 focuses on North/South partnerships for sustainable development. Literature on research partnerships and capacity -building often neglects how these processes are carried out in practice, their social impacts and participants' subjective experiences. Recognizing the increasingly global dimensions of Higher Education Institutions, the University Development and Innovation - Africa project (UDI-A) was designed to train lecturers and administrative staff of Angolan and Mozambican Universities through collaborations with European institutions, aiming at strengthening African academic and social landscapes through knowledge translation and dissemination. This paper examines potential outcomes of UDI-A on participants' academic pathways, investigating the conflict between different imaginaries of capacity-building and partnerships, focusing on how Angolan and Mozambican health sciences researchers experience international collaborations. METHODS Semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven health academics, as well as a focus group discussion involving all participants. These were recorded, fully transcribed, anonymized and coded to identify common themes. A consent form was signed by all participants. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION UDI-A was considered innovative, fostering the improvement of pedagogical skills and increasing social entrepreneurship activities. Participants arrived with a specific institutional mandate and believed that the training received should be incorporated into institutional practices to "modernize" these specific Portuguese speaking African Universities and the health sector. The institutional mechanisms put in place to attain this goal, Centres for Academic Development and Innovation ("CADIs"), were considered potential research and development hubs and drivers of academic and societal transformation. Nevertheless, participants shared a sense of asymmetry (infrastructural, financial, in terms of access to information) between them and European trainers. Although this asymmetry was the underlying basis of this capacity-building project, they argued that UDI-A did not fully acknowledge their local contexts, compromising the prospective development of partnerships in the health field. CONCLUSIONS More attention should be devoted to understanding how participants experience capacity building processes, integrating the diversity of their aspirations and perceptions into subsequent phases of the project, requiring the development of methodological innovations to increase the impact of these programs.

中文翻译：

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“让我们成为合作伙伴！” - 对安哥拉和莫桑比克卫生学者在南北伙伴关系方面的经验进行定性研究。

背景 可持续发展目标 (SDG) 17 重点关注促进可持续发展的南北伙伴关系。关于研究伙伴关系和能力建设的文献常常忽视这些过程在实践中是如何进行的、其社会影响和参与者的主观体验。认识到高等教育机构日益全球化，非洲大学发展和创新项目（UDI-A）旨在通过与欧洲机构合作培训安哥拉和莫桑比克大学的讲师和行政人员，旨在加强非洲的学术和社会景观通过知识的翻译和传播。本文探讨了 UDI-A 对参与者学术道路的潜在成果，调查了能力建设和伙伴关系的不同想象之间的冲突，重点关注安哥拉和莫桑比克健康科学研究人员如何体验国际合作。方法 对七位健康学者进行半结构化访谈，并进行所有参与者参与的焦点小组讨论。这些内容被记录、完全转录、匿名和编码，以识别共同的主题。所有参与者均签署了同意书。结果与讨论 UDI-A 被认为是创新的，促进了教学技能的提高并增加了社会创业活动。与会者带着具体的机构任务抵达，并认为所接受的培训应纳入机构实践，以实现这些特定的葡萄牙语非洲大学和卫生部门的“现代化”。为实现这一目标而建立的体制机制，即学术发展和创新中心（“CADI”），被认为是潜在的研究和开发中心以及学术和社会转型的驱动力。然而，参与者与欧洲培训师之间存在着不对称感（基础设施、财务、信息获取方面）。尽管这种不对称性是该能力建设项目的根本基础，但他们认为 UDI-A 没有充分认识到其当地情况，从而损害了卫生领域伙伴关系的未来发展。结论 应更多地关注了解参与者如何体验能力建设过程，将他们的愿望和看法的多样性融入到项目的后续阶段，需要开发方法创新以增加这些计划的影响。