Creating partnership and collaboration from both national and international institutions is very essential for universities mandate execution since imperative for experience sharing and competence upgrading.  Accordingly, Debre Markos University (DMU) is striving to its best towards networking. It has created partnership and collaboration with different universities in Europe (University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna; Technical University of Vienna; Molise University in Italy; Krakow Agricultural University; Ljubljana University in Slovenia; Weinstephan Triesdorf University in Germany; Oslo University; University of South Eastern Norway, …); in USA (Indiana University; Olympia Green State College);… We have also started networking towards study abroad programs with different Chines Universities; for instance, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Institute of Urban Development; Graduate school of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences; University of Chinese academy of sciences, Nanjing institute of soil science, Kunming Institute of Zoology; University of science and technology of china (ustc); Gunagdong University of Technology.

In order to upgrade the networking to strategic academic partnership, Debre Markos University President had attended “2024 China-Africa Innovation Collaboration and Development Forum” held from 26 – 28 October 2024. Guests from all over the world attended the conference. In the conference, DMU president presented paper entitled “Upgrading Academic Networking to Strategic Partnership”. In the presentation, brief description about Debre Markos University as well as potential areas of partnership and collaboration were presented. In this conference, the University signed MoU with “Oil Crops Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science”. This MoU is agreement to work together in different areas of academics. There was also visit and discussion to work together with the horticultural institute of the Huazhong Agricultural University.

It is not only with Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences but also visit and signing of MoU was conducted with Hebei Academy of Agriculture and Forest Sciences. Hebei University is located in Hebei province of Chinese and there was good discussion with higher and middle level officials about areas of partnership and collaboration. We discussed to work together in collaboration towards research, staff and student exchange, and demand driven community service project. In this University, signing of MoU was conducted with Institute of Biotechnology and Food Science; Practicing the Belt and Road Initiative, Assisting Sino-Ethiopian Scientific and Technological Cooperation.