1. The “French Language, Cultural and Linguistic Diversity” Programme

This programme provides support to students, teachers and researchers in French departments, language centres and French-speaking university programmes, to develop teaching and research of and on French, as well as on its ties with partner languages and intercultural communication in development work.

2. The “Aspects of Rule of Law and Democracy” Programme

This programme aims, first, at contributing to the development of a democratic culture by supporting university programmes in the political and legal sciences, and secondly, consolidating an area for research in French, by taking into account the diversity of legal systems and standards.

3. The “Environment and Solidarity-Based Sustainable Development” Programme

This programme supports nearly 80 university training programmes, and 7 200 students, in fields relating to the environment and sustainable development, such as water, energy and food safety. In addition, nine research networks operating in such fields are invited to address current issues and contribute to the development of scientific and technical information tools in French. Through their efforts, these networks, a breeding ground for international experts, are aimed at creating and maintaining ties of solidarity between French-speaking universities from the North and South, training young researchers and promoting scientific events.

4. The “Supporting and Strengthening Academic Excellence, Partnerships and Relations with Enterprise” Programme

This programme’s actions are designed along four avenues:

• supporting the institutional reforms undertaken by Southern universities to modernise their structures and foster their development;
• building up personnel exchanges and knowledge-sharing between different establishments;
• promoting scientific excellence among French-speaking academics and researchers in the South;
• developing partnerships.

5. The “Innovation through Information and Communications Technologies In Education” Programme

By creating a special programme dedicated to innovation through ICTEs, the AUF wanted to buid its capacity for competitiveness in this field, keep its lead in technological innovation and consolidate its leadership as an academic agency. The are many innovative technologies involved and draw upon an outside monitoring team, the results of colloquia and symposia – both existing and to be organised – as well as on the results of researcher networks. The purpose of this programme is to find new ways of appropriating knowledge, using ICTs. The concrete initiatives are found in the field of new uses, new methods for creating and disseminating scientific and educational content, new professions (Transfer), large-scale standardisation and governance projects, and partnership creation.

6. The “Appropriation of Technological Tools in Higher Education and Research” Programme

The objectives of this programme are to provide quality services to all academic target groups involved, ensure appropriation and communication about information technologies by all of the AUF and in particular the other programmes, and ensure appropriation of methods and tools by member establishments. The programme is responsible for the network and activities at French-speaking digital campuses and information centres. The objective of the network is to implement new activites, in accordance with the needs of member estabslihments, the developments of the academic world and on the basis of validated experimentation.