About
The Association of Commonwealth Universities, ACU, is a global network of universities with a shared commitment to building a better world through international collaboration in higher education. As the world’s first and older international university network, it has been bringing universities together from across the Commonwealth for more than 100 years.
The ACU has over 400 member universities in more than 40 countries across the Commonwealth with 70% of members being from low- and middle-income countries and are represented in more than 50% of Commonwealth large ocean states. Learn more about ACU members here: ACU member universities.
The ACU’s strategic priorities are to champion the power of higher education to improve lives, support the long-term vitality of universities, engage and connect universities across borders, and promote collaboration among them, deliver educational opportunities that make a positive and uphold the ACU’s reputation for excellence and demonstrate its impact.
McMaster University is one of the ACU’s funding members since 1913. As ACU’s member, McMaster promotes initiatives around educational innovation, student experience, and international research collaboration. In the past few years, McMaster received 4 ACU Grants and Awards and hosted 1 ACU Fellow:
- 3 Summer School Awards in 2019 were awarded to McMaster’s Alumni
- 1 Commonwealth Futures Award in 2019 awarded to Ahmednur Ali who attended the workshops in London and India and selected as a rep for ACU at the CHOGM Youth Forum. His experience featured here
- 1 ACU Fellowship joint host in 2017: Fellow Paul Denny, University of Auckland. His work during fellowship placement is featured here.
ACU has a number of available resources available to McMaster Community, please click in each box to learn more.
Information Box Group
The Equitable Partnerships Toolkit
A collection of practical resources to assist analysis and action for addressing equity in research partnerships.
ACU Measures
A benchmarking service that provides you with a comparison on policies, practices, and resource allocation that will help support your decision making in key areas – read the executive summary of the most recent ‘supporting research’ survey or request full access to the dashboards.
The ACU Roster of Experts
This roster encourages academics to register their interest to be included in the Roster of Experts to highlight skills and expertise. Values of becoming an ACU expert are outlined below. Interested McMaster faculty members who would like to be included in the Roster should reach out to the OIA (oia@mcmaster.ca).
- Participating as training providers under early career researcher development programmes.
- Serving as consultants on the ACU’s contribution to the design of the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) and Canada International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Climate Adaptation and Resilience (CLARE) programme.
- Contributing to the development of practical resources such as the ACU Equitable Research Partnerships Toolkit noted above.
Higher Education Taskforce
- Members of the ACU HE Taskforce, a group of 20 Vice-Chancellors from ACU member institutions, met for the first time in February 2024 and focused on five key thematic areas where higher education can play a critical role in developing solutions to help governments meet the SDGs. The ACU established working groups for each of these themes below, whose key recommendations will help the ACU to define and shape its submissions to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Antigua and Barbuda in 2026 and the Conference for Commonwealth Education Ministers (CCEM) in 2026 in Guyana. These are:
- Making the case for sustainable higher education funding and finance
- Bridging the gap: Improving access and inclusion in HE
- Fostering sustainable and inclusive research ecosystems
- Navigating the digital frontier: Digital access and AI
- Developing future-ready graduates: Advancing employability, entrepreneurship, and skills in HE
ACU Opportunities for McMaster Faculty and Staff
The ACU has a funding opportunities calendar along with closing dates and links to application pages with further information on specific grants, fellowships and scholarships available to faculty and staff. The ACU funds the following types of activities through grants and fellowships: research and knowledge exchange: teaching, learning and pedagogy; institutional tools and resources; capacity strengthening; university exchange or collaboration. Some opportunities are open to all, while others are only available to ACU members. A full list of opportunities can be found below. Details of each upcoming opportunity is also available on the OIA’s webpage.
Information Box Group
ACU Fellowships
ACU Fellowships facilitate collaboration at a distance and the creation of valuable new partnerships between ACU member universities across the Commonwealth. These partnerships are developed through research visits for a period of 1 to 6 months to an ACU member university in a different country under the following Fellowships:
- Accountancy Fellowship – Supported by the Worshipful Company of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales- one award available of up to 2,500 GBP.
- Hong Kong Inbound and Outbound Fellowships – Supported by the Hong Kong Jockey Club- two awards available of up to 2,500 GBP per award.
King's Commonwealth Fellowship Programme PhDs
The King’s Commonwealth Fellowship Programme PhD Fellowships, inspired by His Majesty King Charles III, offer a unique opportunity for fellows from Small Island Developing States to undertake a PhD in their home country alongside work.
Fellows will enroll in a PhD programme in their home country and receive joint supervision from a dedicated partner university elsewhere across the Commonwealth (mainly Australia, Canada, New Zealand, or United Kingdom), where they will attend periods of study and/or research methods training. The program will support PhD studies in the following subject areas:
- Climate change/environment
- Education
- Engineering and
- Health
ACU Gender Grants
ACU Gender Grants are awarded annually to member universities to support initiatives that will boost gender equity and equality on campus. The grants can be used for a diverse range of projects, workshops, and events in areas such as:
- Supporting women in leadership
- Raising awareness of sexual harassment and developing anti-sexual harassment initiatives
- Supporting women in science and research
- Creating effective institutional policies
- Mainstreaming gender equity into the curriculum
- To help meet the costs of organising projects that promote gender equity and equality.
The ACU is working in partnership with the Martha Farrell Foundation to provide up to three of the five Gender Grants focused on creating effective anti-sexual harassment policies and strategies, drawing on the Foundation’s expertise in anti-sexual harassment initiatives.
Early Career Conference Grants
Early Career Conference Grants help to ensure that emerging researchers – and the universities that employ them – can benefit from the valuable opportunity of attending and taking part in in-person conferences in Commonwealth countries outside of their country of work. These events are a chance to share research, learn about the latest developments in an area of work, and build valuable professional networks.
Supporting Research Community Grants
The grants fund training that equips researchers with essential skills to enable them to succeed in their careers, whether they remain in academia, or utilise their skills in other professional fields. Universities can use their internal criteria of what defines an early career researcher (ECR), but this must include Doctoral candidates, and the training must be made available to ECRs from multiple disciplines.
Skills which are in scope of the training include:
- Presentation skills
- Networking
- Time management
- Public engagement and communicating with non-academic audiences
- Media training
- Social media
- Relationship/stakeholder management
- Grant writing
- Research data management
- Career training, including doctoral careers outside higher education
Blue Charter Knowledge Exchange Training Programme
The Blue Charter Knowledge Exchange Training Programme aims to help enhance the impact of research dissemination activities undertaken by early-career researchers (ECRs) working in the field of marine science. By enhancing knowledge exchange and communication skills, the programme will support researchers to better promote best practices, effective interventions and innovative solutions emerging from their area of research. Researchers may be nominated to enrol in the training, and the focus of their research must be marine plastic pollution, or a related area.
HR in Higher Education Community Grants
The grants are available to help meet the costs of organising projects that promote the essential work of HR and the aims of the HR in HE Community in a diverse range of virtual or in-person projects, workshops, or events, such as:
- Attending HR-related conferences and sharing learnings
- Creating and delivering relevant training and development for HR practitioners
- Co-creating approaches/policies on HR issues, such as workforce planning, inclusion, mental health, international recruitment
- Co-creating HR processes
- Delivering webinars on pressing issues for HR practitioners
- Benchmarking of good HR practice across the Commonwealth
- Research projects
‘Writing for the Media' training with Universal Impact
This tailor-made training course will provide you with the skills to pitch and write for the media. Facilitated by Universal Impact / The Conversation, the course will be held online, over two, two-hour sessions and will cover:
- The importance of research communication
- Examples of reach and impact
- The media landscape and the type of stories researchers can write
- What makes a good story (with examples)
- Language, structure and tone
- How to avoid being misrepresented
- How to pitch successfully
Twenty places are available for this training course. For the top scoring candidates, only one place will be offered per ACU member university.
Edward Boyle Medical Elective Grants
The Edward Boyle Medical Elective grants offer medical students at a UK ACU member institution funding towards a medical elective within a low or middle-income Commonwealth country. 6 grants of up to GBP 1000 are awarded.
ACU Opportunities for McMaster Students
The ACU has a funding opportunities calendar along with closing dates and links to application pages with further information on specific grants, fellowships and scholarships available to students. The ACU funds the following types of activities through grants and fellowships: research and knowledge exchange: teaching, learning and pedagogy; institutional tools and resources; capacity strengthening; university exchange or collaboration. Some opportunities are open to all, while others are only available to ACU members. A full list of opportunities can be found below. Details of each upcoming opportunity is also available on the OIA’s webpage.
Information Box Group
The Queen Elizabeth Commonwealth Scholarships
The Queen Elizabeth Commonwealth Scholarships (QECS) offer a unique opportunity to study a two-year master’s degree in a low or middle-income Commonwealth country.
Each year there are two opportunities to apply for QECS – cycle 1 opens in November/December and cycle 2 opens in March/April. You only need to submit one application, but you are welcome to apply more than once if there is another country you are interested in studying in.
The Commonwealth Scholarship Commission
The Commonwealth Scholarship Commission in the UK (CSC) provides the leading scholarship programme focused on sustainable development for the government of the United Kingdom (UK). Funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), it supports the co-creation of research, innovation, and solutions to advance sustainable development priorities across the Commonwealth and beyond.
Upon completion of their studies and research, Commonwealth Alumni return to their home countries and work to address these local and national sustainable development priorities.
Ocean Country Partnership Programme
Ocean Country Partnership Programme (OCPP) Scholarships offer a unique opportunity to undertake a fully funded Master’s or PhD in marine science.
Aimed at early to mid-career researchers who wish to develop a career in marine science, the OCPP scholarships support world-class research and innovation in the areas of:
- marine pollution
- sustainable seafood
- marine biodiversity
The King’s Commonwealth Fellowship Programme
The King’s Commonwealth Fellowship Programme (KCFP), inspired by His Majesty King Charles III and his life’s work to create opportunity and to tackle contemporary challenges including climate change and inequality, has been developed in response to these urgent economic, social and environmental development challenges affecting Small Island Developing States (SIDS).
KCFP offers fellowships for mid-career public service professionals, undergraduate scholarships, and PhDs. Activities included in the programme will take place in-country, with an emphasis on local impact and retaining skills and talent in SIDS regions. The programme aims to strengthen climate resilience, build capacity in education, health and engineering, and develop resilient public services and the skills of those who support them.
The Routledge/Round Table Commonwealth PhD Studentships
The Routledge/Round Table Commonwealth PhD Studentships provide support for research projects on Commonwealth-related themes in the humanities and social sciences.
Proposed research must meet at least one of the following criteria:
- Relate to the Commonwealth as a whole or to any Commonwealth-wide institution or organisation.
- Have a Commonwealth comparative aspect.
- Be of relevance to more than one Commonwealth country.
ACU Global Grants
ACU Global Grants support undergraduate students from UK member universities to attend summer schools overseas. The grants, which are funded by the kind legacy of Major Harold William Paxton, are aimed particularly at students from low-income families, care leavers, and students who are the first in their family to attend university.