Hawassa University (HU) is one of the first-generation universities in Ethiopia whose establishment was laid as Awassa College of Agriculture (ACA) in 1976 with the admission of 217 students. At the moment, Hawassa University (HU) is one of the first-generation universities in Ethiopia encompassing 9 colleges, 3 institutes, and 7 campuses set in and outside of Hawassa City. Four of its seven campuses (the Main campus, Institute of Technology, College of Agriculture, and College of Medicine and Health Sciences) are situated in Hawassa City while College of Forestry and Natural Resources, College of Business and Economics, and Daye Campus are located in Wondogenet, Yirgalem and Bensa Daye, respectively. In terms of academic capacity, HU hosts more than 32,000 students enrolled in 309 academic programs.  It has been recently differentiated by MoSHE/MoE as one of the 8 Research Universities in Ethiopia, so it is working towards becoming one of the top ten research universities in East Africa by 2030. With this vision, HU is engaged in: advanced level multidisciplinary teaching and learning; conducting problem-solving research, and delivering research-informed services to the community. HU has established a long-standing collaboration with different national and international partners working closely on teaching, research and community services towards its goals. Hence, HU runs 63 collaborative projects (53 international and 10 local) involving 101 global and 91 local partners. Multiple collaborative projects in HU are predominantly financed by countries such as the USA, Norway, Germany and UK, and other countries and global institutions such as the Netherlands, Italy, Japan, Sweden, Australia, Belgium, the UN and EU are also financing one or two collaborative projects in HU.