The African Biomedical Engineering Mobility (ABEM) project is funded by the Intra-Africa Academic Mobility Scheme of the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency of the European Commission. The scheme is modelled on Europe’s well-established and successful Erasmus-Mundus programme. As part of the Roadmap 2014-2017 of the Joint Africa-EU Strategy, the Intra-Africa Mobility Scheme underlines the contribution of higher education towards economic and social development and the potential of academic mobility to improve the quality of higher education.