General

First Makerere Workshop on Social Systems & Computation

Published

16 years ago

November 29, 2010

Summary Top researchers from Northwestern University (Chicago), University of British Columbia (Vancouver) and Makerere (Kampala) are teaming up to offer a workshop on cutting-edge methods for computational modeling of social systems, algorithm design, and machine learning. The sessions will take place between December 3rd and 10th, and there is no cost for attendance; however, registration is mandatory.

Summary Top researchers from Northwestern University (Chicago), University of British Columbia (Vancouver) and Makerere (Kampala) are teaming up to offer a workshop on cutting-edge methods for computational modeling of social systems, algorithm design, and machine learning. The sessions will take place between December 3rd and 10th, and there is no cost for attendance; however, registration is mandatory.

Attendance is limited to academic staff working at a Ugandan university; students doing research in related areas may also be given special permission to attend if space permits. Participants will have the opportunity to publish papers in official, reviewed workshop proceedings at a later date. A certificate of completion will be provided to participants who attend at least two thirds of workshop sessions.

Overview Traditionally, computer science has viewed data as coming from either an adversarial source or from nature itself, giving rise to worst-case and average-case design and analysis of optimization algorithms. In recent years with the advent of modern technologies like the Internet, it has become increasingly apparent that neither of these assumptions reflects reality. Data is neither adversarial nor average, but rather inputs to algorithms are constructed by a diverse set of self-interested agents in an economy, all aiming to maximize their own happiness. Thus the raw data is often not available to an algorithm designer, but must be solicited from the agents–that is, the designer faces an economic constraint. The primary goal of this workshop is to explore the implications of this observation. We will study the performance of algorithms in the presence of utility-maximizing agents and ask whether alternate designs might create incentives for agents to act more optimally. Simultaneously, we will look at other more traditional optimization problems such as approximation and learning and techniques to solve them, pointing out that these may often be leveraged to solve issues in the economic setting.

Related Research Areas Computer Science Theory; Artificial Intelligence; Economics; Business

Format The workshop will consist of six 3-hour lectures, plus meal/breakout sessions for informal research discussion. Spaces are strictly limited, and attendees must pre-register. We will aim to select topics and session times that are best for our participants. To register, and to indicate your preferences for topics and dates, please complete the survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WWGMKZG.

List of Candidate Topics The workshop will consist of up to six of the following twelve topics.

Introduction to Game Theory
Game theory is the mathematical study of interaction among independent, self-interested agents. It has been applied to disciplines as diverse as economics, political science, biology, psychology, linguistics—and computer science. This tutorial will introduce what has become the dominant branch of game theory, called noncooperative game theory, and will specifically describe normal-form games, a canonical representation in this discipline. The tutorial will be motivated by the question: "In a strategic interaction, what joint outcomes make sense?"

Voting Theory
Voting (or "Social Choice") theory adopts a“designer perspective” to multiagent systems, asking what rules should be put in place by the authority (the “designer”) orchestrating a set of agents. Specifically, how should a central authority pool the preferences of different agents so as to best reflect the wishes of the population as a whole? (Contrast this with Game Theory, whichadopts what might be called the “agent perspective”: its focus is on making statements about how agents should or would act in a given situation.) This tutorial will describe famous voting rules, show problems with them, and explain Arrow's famous impossibility result.

Mechanism Design and Auctions
Social choice theory is nonstrategic: it takes the preferences of agents as given, and investigates ways in which they can be aggregated. But of course those preferences are usually not known. Instead, agents must be asked to declare them, which they may do dishonestly. Since as a designer you wish to find an optimal outcome with respect to the agents’ true preferences (e.g., electing a leader that truly reflects the agents’ preferences), optimizing with respect to the declared preferences will not in general achieve the objective. This tutorial will introduce Mechanism Design, the study of identifying socially desirable protocols for making decisions in such settings. It will describe the core principles behind this theory, and explain the famous "Vickrey-Clarke-Groves" mechanism, an ingenious technique for selecting globally-utility-maximizing outcomes even among selfish agents. It will also describe Auction Theory, the most famous application of mechanism design. Auctions are mechanisms that decide who should receive a scarce resource, and that impose payments upon some or all participants, based on agents' "bids".

Constraint Satisfaction Problem Solving
This hands-on tutorial will teach participants about solving Constraint Satisfaction Problems using search and constraint propagation techniques. This is a representation language from artificial intelligence, used to describe problems in scheduling, circuit verification, DNA structure prediction, vehicle routing, and many other practical problems. The tutorial will consider the problem of solving Sudoku puzzles as a running example. By the end of the session, participants will have written software (in Python) capable of solving any Sudoku puzzle in less than a second.

Bayesian methods and Probabilisitic Inference
Bayesian methods are commonly used for recognising patterns and making predictions in the fields of medicine, economics, finance and engineering, powering all manner of applications from fingerprint recognition to spam filters to robotic self-driving cars. This session will show how principles of probability can be used when making inferences from large datasets, covering issues such as prior knowledge and hyperpriors, the construction of "belief networks", and nonparametric methods such as Gaussian processes. Several applications will be demonstrated.

Computer Vision

It is useful to be able to automatically answer questions about an image, such as "is this the face of person X?", "how many cars are there on this street?" or "is there anything unusual about this x-ray?". This session will look at some of the current state of the art in computer vision techniques, including methods for representing the information in an image (feature extraction), and to recognise objects in an image given such a representation. We will particularly spend some time looking at approaches which have been found to work well empirically on object recognition, such as generalised Hough transforms, boosted cascades of Haar wavelet classifiers, and visual bag-of-words methods. Locally relevant applications in crop disease diagnosis, parasite detection in blood samples and traffic monitoring will be demonstrated as illustrating examples.

Learning Causal Structure from Data
Until a few decades ago, it was thought to be impossible to learn causes and effects from purely observational data without doing experiments. Sometimes, however, it is impossible to do experiments (e.g. in some branches of genetics), or experiments may be costly or unethical (e.g. situations in climate change or medicine), so the emergence of computational methods for distinguishing causes, effects and confounding variables is likely to have wide implications. Some principles are now understood for learning the causal structure between different variables, and this session will explain the most successful current approaches, their possibilities and their limitations.

Internet Search and Monetization
The internet is one of the most fundamental and important applications of computer science. Central to its existence are search engines which enable us to find content on the web. This module focuses on the algorithms like PageRank that these search engines use to help us find webpages. It also studies how these engines make money through advertising.

Social Networks
Social networks describe the structure of interpersonal relationships and have many alarmingly predictable properties. While most people have just a few friends, most social networks have at least a few very popular people. Furthermore, most people are closely linked to every other person so that a message (or an idea or a disease) can spread rapidly throughout the network. Finally, social networks tend to be fairly clustered — i.e., if two people share a common friend it is quite likely that they are also friends. This module will discuss the typical structures of social networks, models that explain these structures, and the impact of these structures on activities in the social network such as message routing or the adoption of new technologies.

Two-Sided Matching Markets
Many markets involve two “sides'' that wish to be matched to one another. For example, a marriage market matches women to men; a job market matches workers to employers. In such settings, people on each side have strict preferences over the options on the other side of the market. Hence, a woman Julie may like David best, John second best, and Christopher third. David on the other hand may prefer Mary to Julie. In such settings, what matches might we expect to form? Can these matches be computed by a centralized algorithm, a match-maker for example, and what are the corresponding incentives of the participants? These questions are of fundamental importance as such centralized algorithms are in use in many important markets. In many countries, medical students are matched to hospitals using such algorithms, or school children to schools.

Approximation Algorithms
In the field of algorithms, many tasks turn out to be computationally difficult. That is, the time to complete the task is fundamentally large compared to the size of the problem. For example, consider the problem of finding the optimal way to visit 10 cities, visiting each exactly once. To minimize travel time, one could test all possible travel schedules, but for 10 cities there are already 3.5M of them! Unfortunately, there is not a significantly quicker way to find the optimal solution. However, one can find an approximately optimal solution quickly. That is, with just a few things to check, one can design a schedule that takes at most 50% more time than the optimal one. In this module we showcase a few general techniques for computing approximate solutions to hard problems, including the use of randomization and linear programming.

Graph Theory
A graph is a combinatorial object consisting of nodes and edges, and is a extremely valuable abstraction of many practical problems. For example, nodes might represent jobs and edges might connect pairs of jobs that can not be performed simultaneously. Alternatively, nodes might represent electronic components on a circuit board and edges the wiring that connects them. Many questions that arise in such domains can be cast as an optimization question in the corresponding graph. The number of workers required to complete all jobs in fixed time frame in the first example is at its heart a graph coloring problem. Asking whether one can lay out the circuit board so no two wires cross becomes the problem of determining which graphs have planar representations. This course defines graphs, shows how to solve a few fundamental graph problems, and applies them to practical settings.

Speaker Bios

Nicole Immorlica is an assistant professor in the Economics Group of Northwestern University's EECS department in Chicago, IL, USA. She joined Northwestern in Fall 2008 after postdoctoral positions at Microsoft Research in Seattle, Washington, USA and Centruum voor Wiskunde en Informatica (CWI) in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. She received her Ph.D. from MIT in Boston, MA, USA, in 2005 under the joint supervision of Erik Demaine and David Karger. Her main research area is algorithmic game theory where she investigates economic and social implications of modern technologies including social networks, advertising auctions, and online auction design.

Kevin Leyton-Brown is an associate professor in computer science at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. He received a B.Sc. from McMaster University (1998), and an M.Sc. and PhD from Stanford University (2001; 2003). Much of his work is at the intersection of computer science and microeconomics, addressing computational problems in economic contexts and incentive issues in multiagent systems. He also studies the application of machine learning to the automated design and analysis of algorithms for solving hard computational problems.

John Quinn is a Senior Lecturer in Computer Science at Makerere University. He received a BA in Computer Science from the University of Cambridge (2000) and a PhD from the University of Edinburgh (2007). He coordinates the Machine Learning Group at Makerere, and his research interests are in pattern recognition and computer vision particularly applied to developing world problems.

General

JICA, Makerere University Explore New Frontiers in AI and Research Collaboration

Published

2 days ago

September 4, 2026

Mak Editor

Prof. Sarah Ssali presents the Makerere coffee table book to Dr. Okano Takasei as Makerere and JICA Officials witness on 4th September 2026. Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) delegation led by Dr. Okano Takasei meets DVCAA Prof. Sarah Ssali, explores new opportunities for strengthening academic, research and innovation collaboration between Uganda, Japan and other African countries, with a particular focus on artificial intelligence (AI), aerospace engineering, materials and remote sensing, food value chains, energy, water and climate change, 4th September 2026, Main Building, Makerere University, Kampala Uganda, East Africa.

_{By Moses Lutaaya}

Kampala, September 4, 2026 — Makerere University and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) have explored new opportunities for strengthening academic, research and innovation collaboration between Uganda, Japan and other African countries, with a particular focus on artificial intelligence (AI), aerospace engineering, materials and remote sensing, food value chains, energy, water and climate change.

The discussions took place on Friday, September 4, 2026, at the Makerere University Main Building in the Vice Chancellor’s Board Room, during a visit by a JICA delegation led by Dr. Okano Takasei, Senior Advisor, Human Development Department of JICA.

Makerere keen to deepen collaboration with JICA

Welcoming the delegation, the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic Affairs), Prof. Sarah Ssali, highlighted Makerere University’s long-standing tradition of research, international collaboration and contribution to knowledge generation in Uganda and beyond.

Prof. Ssali noted that Makerere has built a strong global research footprint through partnerships with institutions around the world, observing that the University is well positioned to deepen international collaboration as emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence, continue to transform research and higher education.

“Uganda has a very long history of doing research, and particularly it has informed research findings in the areas global health research,” Prof. Ssali said, pointing to Uganda’s historical contribution to global scientific knowledge.

She cited the country’s contribution to medical and biological research, including early research on sleeping sickness, noting that Uganda’s unique research environment continues to offer opportunities for scientific discovery.

Prof. Ssali said Makerere’s history of collaboration with Japan is particularly significant, noting that Japanese cooperation has contributed not only to academic and research activities but also to infrastructure development and other sectors in Uganda.

She cited the establishment of the JICA building at Makerere, describing it as one of the visible symbols of Japan’s long-standing partnership with Makerere University.

Prof. Sarah Ssali (R) presents a Makerere necktie to Dr. Okano Takasei (L). Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) delegation led by Dr. Okano Takasei meets DVCAA Prof. Sarah Ssali, explores new opportunities for strengthening academic, research and innovation collaboration between Uganda, Japan and other African countries, with a particular focus on artificial intelligence (AI), aerospace engineering, materials and remote sensing, food value chains, energy, water and climate change, 4th September 2026, Main Building, Makerere University, Kampala Uganda, East Africa. — ***Prof. Sarah Ssali (R) presents a Makerere necktie to Dr. Okano Takasei (L).***

According to Prof. Ssali, the building, which houses College of Natural Sciences (CoNAS) disciplines of geology, petroleum studies and administrative offices, was constructed during her undergraduate years and completed within a remarkably short period.

Prof. Ssali said the long-standing relationship between Uganda, Makerere University and Japan provides a strong foundation upon which new areas of collaboration can be built. She encouraged the visiting JICA delegation to explore the University and identify areas where existing partnerships could be strengthened or new areas of cooperation developed.

“Please take time and explore and see where either you already have a footprint, where you’ve ever had a footprint, or where you could explore new areas,” she said.

Prof. Ssali added that Makerere was privileged to host the JICA delegation and expressed optimism that the visit would lead to meaningful and sustainable partnerships.

Strengthening Joint Collaboration through AJ-ASPIRE

Dr. Okano, in his remarks as leader of the delegation said the visit formed part of a broader JICA initiative aimed at promoting academic and research collaboration between Japanese and African universities.

He explained that the initiative was launched on the occasion of the ninth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD 9), held in Yokohama in September 2025, with the objective of strengthening academic and research partnerships between Japan and Africa.

According to Dr. Okano, the initiative is intended to benefit both African and Japanese universities by providing platforms for internationalisation, collaborative research and the exchange of knowledge, researchers and students. “We would like to play a role of facilitator between universities in Japan and Africa and Uganda as well,” he said.

He explained that JICA is currently promoting the initiative through three African hub universities where JICA already has ongoing projects and experts on the ground.

The three institutions are Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology (E-JUST) in Egypt, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) in Kenya, and Stellenbosch University in South Africa.

Dr. Okano said the selection of the three institutions was informed by the presence of ongoing JICA-supported projects and experts who can facilitate collaboration between the hub universities and institutions across Africa and Japan.

Dr. Okano Takasei makes his remarks. Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) delegation led by Dr. Okano Takasei meets DVCAA Prof. Sarah Ssali, explores new opportunities for strengthening academic, research and innovation collaboration between Uganda, Japan and other African countries, with a particular focus on artificial intelligence (AI), aerospace engineering, materials and remote sensing, food value chains, energy, water and climate change, 4th September 2026, Main Building, Makerere University, Kampala Uganda, East Africa. — ***Dr. Okano Takasei makes his remarks.***

The hub universities are currently coordinating research with Japanese universities in strategic areas, with E-JUST focusing on energy, JKUAT leading work on food value chains, and Stellenbosch University focusing on water and climate change.

Dr. Okano said JICA was particularly pleased to explore collaboration with Makerere University under the African-Japan Initiative for Research and Education Partnerships, known as AJ-ASPIRE.

He outlined three major avenues through which Makerere could participate in the initiative.

The first is participation in existing research programmes hosted by the three hub universities. He added that Makerere researchers could join ongoing research on energy, food value chains, water and climate change, thereby creating opportunities to work with Japanese and other African researchers.

“We would like to explore opportunity for researchers from Makerere University to participate in these ongoing research activities and expand collaboration with Japanese and African partner institutions,” Dr. Okano said.

The second area is the development of new research networks in artificial intelligence and aerospace engineering. Dr. Okano said JICA was planning to establish new research groups focusing on the two areas and would be interested in having Makerere researchers participate in the emerging networks. “We would like to also invite researchers from Makerere University to join these networks and implementation of future collaboration in these two research topics, aerospace engineering and AI,” he said.

The third proposed avenue is increased collaboration between Makerere University and E-JUST, which Dr. Okano said offers fully funded scholarship opportunities for African students through a programme jointly supported by the governments of Egypt and Japan.

He noted that a number of Makerere graduates have already benefited from the programme, including researchers who have pursued doctoral studies and research opportunities in Egypt and Japan.

Dr. Okano cited the example of Mr. Abdonoor Kalibala, a Makerere alumnus whom he recently met in Hiroshima, Japan, following completion of PhD in Mechatronics and Robotics engineering at E-JUST. Mr. Kalibala conducted research in Japan for up to six months under the supervision of a Japanese professor as part of his doctoral programme.

Dr. Okano said such programmes could help strengthen the movement of researchers between Uganda, Egypt and Japan and create lasting institutional partnerships.

He added that JICA is also providing small research grants to alumni of the programmes to help them maintain and expand research collaboration involving Japan, E-JUST and African institutions.

He said Makerere could leverage such opportunities to increase the participation of its students and researchers in international research networks.

AI, Materials and Remote Sensing and International Relations Set the Pace

Prof. Robert Wamala, Director of Research, Innovations and Partnerships at Makerere University, said the visit followed an online engagement held a few weeks earlier between Makerere University and JICA, during which several areas and units within the University were identified as potential points of collaboration.

Prof. Wamala said these included the Makerere University AI Lab, the University’s International Office and researchers working in space engineering, particularly in materials and remote sensing.

He welcomed the transition from online discussions to physical engagement, saying the visit would allow JICA representatives to interact directly with researchers, academic units and University authorities. “This interest is being followed up through an in-person visit, which provides us an opportunity for JICA to engage directly with the relevant units and researchers at Makerere University,” Prof. Wamala said.

For Makerere, he added, the initiative provides an opportunity to connect the University’s research strengths with Japanese universities, research institutions and development partners to address shared development challenges.

L-R: Prof. Robert Wamala, Prof. Sarah Ssali, Ms. Eri Maeda and Dr. Okano Takasei flip through the Makerere Coffee Table book. Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) delegation led by Dr. Okano Takasei meets DVCAA Prof. Sarah Ssali, explores new opportunities for strengthening academic, research and innovation collaboration between Uganda, Japan and other African countries, with a particular focus on artificial intelligence (AI), aerospace engineering, materials and remote sensing, food value chains, energy, water and climate change, 4th September 2026, Main Building, Makerere University, Kampala Uganda, East Africa. — ***L-R: Prof. Robert Wamala, Prof. Sarah Ssali, Ms. Eri Maeda and Dr. Okano Takasei flip through the Makerere Coffee Table book.***

Prof. Wamala said the University was particularly interested in identifying practical areas of collaboration that could move beyond general discussions to concrete research partnerships, joint projects and opportunities for students and researchers.

He noted that the JICA delegation’s on-campus interactions scheduled to take place throughout the day would enable the two sides to identify specific areas of mutual interest. “We hope these engagements will help us identify specific areas of future interest and provide a basis for developing concrete areas of collaboration under the AJ-ASPIRE,” Prof. Wamala said.

He reiterated Makerere’s commitment to strengthening international research partnerships and thanked JICA for its continued interest in the University.

Dr. Okano, was accompanied by Mr. Ito Idomu, Research and Advisor at the Embassy of Japan, Mr. Osaki Mistuhiro from JICA headquarters, Ms. Eric Maeda from JICA Headquarters, and Ms. Ruth Mbabazi from JICA Uganda.

JICA follow-up meetings with Makerere research units

Following the high-level meeting in the Vice Chancellor’s Board Room, the JICA team, together with the Directorate of Research, Innovations and Partnerships, proceeded to engage with key research and administrative units at Makerere University identified as strategic to the proposed areas of collaboration.

The delegation held meetings with the Makerere University AI Lab, led by Dr. Joyce Nabende of the College of Computing and Information Sciences (COCIS), to explore opportunities for cooperation in artificial intelligence and related emerging technologies.

The team also met officials from the Makerere University International Office, led by Mr. Mathias Ssemanda, where discussions focused on opportunities for strengthening international academic linkages, mobility and institutional partnerships.

A further engagement was held with the Department of Geomatics and Land Management, focusing on materials and remote sensing, led by Prof. Lydia Kayondo from the College of Engineering, Design, Art and Technology (CEDAT).

The engagements provided an opportunity for the JICA team and Makerere researchers to move from broad discussions on collaboration to more specific conversations around research interests, expertise, existing projects and potential areas for joint work.

The visit marks an important step towards strengthening Makerere University’s engagement with Japanese and African research institutions under AJ-ASPIRE, while opening opportunities for researchers and students to participate in emerging international networks in artificial intelligence, aerospace engineering, remote sensing and other strategic areas of science, technology and innovation.

General

Undergraduate Admissions: Students allowed to Change Programs/Subjects 2026/27

Published

4 days ago

September 2, 2026

Mak Editor

The Office of the Academic Registrar has released lists of students whose applications for change of Programme/Subjects have been approved for the Academic Year 2026/2027.

The lists can be accessed by following the inks below:

General

Uganda to Launch ACT-PREP, Africa’s New Epidemic Preparedness Research Network

Published

1 week ago

August 28, 2026

Mak Editor

A KCCA Medical Office debriefs the MakSPH Field Epidemiologists and Surveillance Team during the CoVID-19 pandemic. Makerere University School of Public Health, Kampala, Uganda, East Africa.

_{By Henry Mugenyi}

When the next infectious disease outbreak strikes, the question for African researchers should not be whether they have the capacity to conduct the research, but how quickly they can begin.

That is the gap a new five-year research initiative, Advancing Clinical Trials and Epidemic Preparedness Research Capacity in Africa (ACT-PREP), is seeking to address.

The project will be officially launched in Uganda on September 28^th, 2026, bringing together researchers and partners from universities and research institutions across Africa and Europe. The launch will be held at the Makerere University School of Public Health (MakSPH) Auditorium in Kampala.

Led by Makerere University School of Public Health, ACT-PREP is designed to strengthen Africa’s ability to conduct clinical trials and other research before and during infectious disease outbreaks.

Africa has repeatedly faced epidemics of diseases such as Marburg, Ebola, COVID-19 and other emerging infections. Yet when outbreaks occur, the capacity to quickly generate the evidence needed to guide treatment, prevention and public health decisions remains underdeveloped.

ACT-PREP aims to make research part of outbreak preparedness not something that begins only after an epidemic has already spread.

According to Prof Rhoda Wanyenze, the Principal Investigator on the project, “the initiative will establish a framework for more equitable collaboration among 10 African and two European institutions, working alongside Universities and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC)”.

The consortium includes institutions from Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, South Sudan and Senegal, as well as European partners in Sweden and Germany. Africa CDC is also among the participating institutions.

For Uganda, the launch at Makerere University is significant. The university is taking the scientific lead on a programme that places African research institutions at the centre of efforts to prepare for future epidemics.

One of ACT-PREP’s central ambitions is to address the shortage of researchers and systems capable of rapidly conducting high-quality clinical research during emergencies.

The project will strengthen clinical research, ethics and regulatory capacity, while also supporting laboratory and disease surveillance systems. It will integrate training into PhD and postdoctoral programmes, with the consortium aiming to train at least 700 fellows at the end of the project.

“The idea is straightforward: Africa needs not only laboratories and equipment, but also people with the skills to use them when an outbreak begins” – Says Dr Steven Kabwama, ACT-PREP Project Manager.

Researchers will also be supported to share expertise, data, resources and technology across institutions and national borders.

ACT-PREP will further explore One Health approaches and artificial intelligence-supported systems to improve disease prediction, detection and rapid response. The project also seeks to support more streamlined regulatory processes so that clinical trials can be deployed and monitored more quickly when they are needed.

The experience of recent epidemics has shown that time is one of the most valuable resources in an outbreak.

Delays in detecting a pathogen, setting up research sites, securing ethical and regulatory approvals or generating reliable evidence can affect how quickly health authorities are able to respond.

ACT-PREP is built around the idea that many of these systems should already be in place before the next emergency.

That means having trained researchers, functioning laboratories, established regulatory pathways, surveillance systems and relationships between institutions that can be activated when an outbreak occurs.

It also means changing how research partnerships are built.

Rather than relying on external institutions to arrive when a crisis begins, the project seeks to strengthen African institutions themselves and create longer-term collaborations in which expertise, technology, data and resources can be shared across borders.