On Monday 18 February Country Director Gill Westaway paid her first visit to Sabaragamuwa University in Belihul Oya, one of the newest of the Sri Lankan State Universities. This visit was very much in the context of our new HE partnership development plans under the Prime Minister’s Initiative (PMI2) and discussions with the Minister of Higher Education during which he urged us to explore how we could support some of the newer universities in the country. A grant under PMI2 is assisting Durham University to develop a new link with Sabaragamuwa and Gill visited the university campus with Professor Joy Palmer Cooper, Director of Project Sri Lanka, and Professor David Cooper from Durham. We were pleased to note that at Durham’s invitation the Vice-Chancellor of Sabaragamuwa University had visited Durham in January 2008 and a Memorandum of Understanding had been signed between the two institutions to further academic collaboration in the following areas:

			Buddhism and applied ethics
			Enterprise and Entrepreneurial learning
			Environmental thinking and the 'green campus
			Sports and sports science
			Community-based social work and social policy
			Information and Communications technology and software development
			Areas of geographical, agricultural and biological science

Academic visits to Sri Lanka will be supported by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and our own PMI2 funding. A total of 8 academic members of staff from Durham will be visiting Sabaragamuwa in 2008, and 15 students from Durham University will be spending several weeks on campus in Belihul Oya in July and August 2008, helping to teach English and engaging in various other educational activities there.