A global discussion is taking place among Higher Education (HE) stakeholders to strive for HE that does better justice to the needs of the learner and of society. The relevance of study programs is probably the most pressing issue in HE today worldwide, including the countries in South America. In the public eye HE institutions should offer high quality programs that contribute significantly to the welfare of society by preparing graduates well for work and for civic and social engagement. To meet this need, a paradigm shift is required from traditional expert-oriented teaching to student-centred and active learning, based on competences and learning outcomes. Although there is full awareness that this shift is to be made, HE institutions and their academic staff in SA (and beyond) lack capacity, expertise and experience to make this happen. Building on work already done in Europe and in LA, ACE aims to develop effective mechanisms to give student-centred education a serious boost by acting as a catalyzer in 6 South-American countries, involving 13 key universities. ACE covers in each country 1-4 core academic fields, Nursing, Environmental Engineering, Education and History, representing as many HE sectors. At the heart of the project are 20 local working groups (WGs) consisting of 5 academics and of 5 student representatives each. The broad involvement of (local) staff and students is a unique feature. The WGs are all represented in transnational Subject Area Groups. Its members will be empowered to train their local WGs to reform their own programs. For this purpose, subject area qualifications frameworks will be made, based on (updated) meta-profiles developed in earlier LA projects. These will be complemented with in-depth training at 7 transnational meetings. As a result, ACE will result in 20 well informed learning communities that have reformed their programs and be equipped to assist other programs to make the reforms so urgently needed.