The Department has strong research ties with the Ghent Centre for Afrikaans (Belgium) and the Study of South Africa, for the last five years. Since 2019 Dr Bonthuys has been appointed as an external researcher at the Centre. Prof van Wyk received the prestigious Sarton Medal from Ghent for his research in Afrikaans literature in 2017 while (emeritus) Prof Hendricks delivered the keynote speech at the 4th Ghent Colloquium over Afrikaans in the same year. Since 2020 cooperation between the department, Ghent and the University of Groningen has also been explored. This tri-national cooperation affords students and staff an interesting exchange as well as research opportunities for the future. 

The department’s postgraduate students have benefitted from an exchange agreement with the University of Leiden. Four MA students spent a semester at Leiden where they studied advanced courses in Literary Theory and Dutch Literature.