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Makerere-Sida sign USD 25.7m Specific Agreement on Research Cooperation

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Makerere University and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) signed an Agreement on Continued Research Cooperation on 18th February 2010. Phase III of the agreement slated for the four-year period starting January 2010 to June 2014 will be worth 180million SEK or USD 25.7million.

Makerere University and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) signed an Agreement on Continued Research Cooperation on 18th February 2010. Phase III of the agreement slated for the four-year period starting January 2010 to June 2014 will be worth 180million SEK or USD 25.7million.

The Director, School of Graduate Studies, Prof. Eli Katunguka Rwakishaya expressed gratitude at witnessing the signing of yet another agreement for continued research support, which started in 2000. He thanked the Government and people of Sweden for the previous phases of support valued at 300million SEK or USD 37.5million, which saw the strengthening of Makerere’s position as leading provider of Science education and research; Improvement of the quality of academic staff and graduates through PhD training and reduction of L-R Ms. Christine Johansson-Dep Swedish Amb/Sida Country Director, Prof. Eli Katunguka-Rwakishaya-SGS Director and Dr. Cristina de Carvalho Erikssonthe degree of brain drain. He pledged that at the end of the 4 year period, Makerere was committed to have; increased the use of research outputs, technologies and innovations to contribute to national development; increased its Capacity to undertake research, generate and use new knowledge; and created an enabling environment for carrying out quality research.

Dr. Christina de Carvalho, Policy Specialist, Research, Sida Team Uganda, who was instrumental in providing valuable input for Phase III extension thanked Prof. Katunguka and the Makerere team, for their successful completion of previous phases. She lauded the Swedish Government for increasing the funding for Phase III, which will witness three more academic units namely; The Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and the Quality Assurance Directorate come on board.

The Acting Vice-Chancellor Prof. Venansius Baryamureeba thanked Sida for the long term support to projects, which has indeed established Sida as partner in Makerere’s adage to build for the future. He indeed appreciated the benefits Makerere has reaped thus far such as; the Campus-wide fiber optic backbone; the improved gender terrain due to support accorded to the gender mainstreaming division and support to university efforts to reform administrative, financial, research, teaching and learning processes. Prof Baryamureeba further valued the support, which this time round also benefit the four other public universities in the area of PhD and Masters training.

H.E. Andres Johnson, Swedish Ambassador to Uganda In his address, the Swedish Ambassador to Uganda H.E. Andres Johnson, reiterated the importance of Research and innovations, which form the basis for Sweden’s exports “Globalisation creates more of interaction and interdependencies. As a small country, Sweden has to be internationally competitive – more than 50% of our GDP is based on exports.” In relation to Uganda “Consequently, the cooperation between Sweden and Uganda is a tangible manifestation of the importance we attach to the role of research in development” he added. He lauded Makerere’s efforts aimed at administrative reform to ensure the effective and efficient running of the university and commended the institution for becoming the highest-ranked university on research publications in East Africa, during the January webometric rankings.

The Minister of State for Primary Education, Dr. Kamanda Bataringaya, who represented the Minister of State for Higher Education Hon. Mwesigwa Rukutana, expressed Government’s deliberate support to strengthen Makerere’s research capacity through Sida/SAREC funded programs. This, he admitted was done due to the university being identified as “key institution in Uganda best positioned to make a strategic contribution to the overall research capacity in the country.” He noted some of the benefits of Sida’s support such as “the Demographic Surveillance Site at Iganga/Mayuge, the biochemistry lab in the College of Health Sciences, the GIS lab in the Faculty of Technology,” which benefit not only Makerere but server researchers across Uganda and the globe.

 

Amb. Andres Johnson(L) exchanges the MoU with Prof. Baryamureeba(2nd R) as Hon. Bataringaya (2nd L) and an official from the Ministry of Finance look on

On behalf of government of Uganda, Hon. Bataringaya thanked the government and people of Sweden for their continued support to the government of Uganda and Makerere in particular in building research capacity.

Click here to view Hon. Bataringaya's full speech 

Click here to view H.E Ambassador Andres Johnson's full speech

Click here to view Prof. Katunguka-Rwakishaya's full speech  

 

 

Denis Wamala

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Special Exam Results -Diploma in Performing Arts 2025/26

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The results for the 2025/2026 special entry examination for the Diploma in Performing Arts held on Saturday 17th May, 2025. Candidates who scored a final mark of 50% and above passed the Examination and have been recommended to the university’s Admissions Committee for consideration.

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Mature Age Scheme Exam Results for 2025/2026

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The Office of Academic Registrar, Makerere University has released full results for the Mature Age Entry Scheme Examinations for the Academic Year 2025/2026 held on Saturday 14th December, 2024.

The Candidates who scored a final mark of 50% and above passed the examination and have been recommended by the Pre-Entry & Mature Age Committee to the University’s Admissions Board for Consideration.

The Aptitude Exam  Results for 2025/2026 Academic Year released in February 2025 can be found here.

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Call for Application: 2025 SNRM session 4 Summer School

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Participants in focused group discussions. Leiden-Delft-Erasmus East Africa Research Network (LEARN) in collaboration with the Urban Action Lab at Makerere University a workshop to deliberate strategies for mitigating the impacts of climate change in urban centres in the East African Region, Theme: “Resilient Urban Futures: Adapting Livelihoods to Climate Change”, 4th-5th September 2024, School of Public Health Auditorium, Kampala Uganda.

Context:
Natural resources in Africa are being depleted at an alarming rate due to several factors, including unsustainable human activities, climate change, and population growth. A primary condition of sustainable development is to ensure that the pressures do not exceed the environmental limits, and that demand for the resources does not exceed levels that can be sustainably provided by nature. Therefore, there is a pressing need for transformative, systems-thinking approaches and tools that can tackle the diverse challenges facing these systems. In Africa, this need is compounded by a lack of data and monitoring, which significantly hinders sustainable decision-making.

Investing in young scientists who are committed to take lead in sustainable management of Africa’s natural resources is very important. Capacity building of young scientists will enhance their knowledge and skill on sustainable natural resources and their involvement for implementation of the sustainable development goals (SDG’s) in Africa. To this effect, SNRM summer schools have been implemented in three sessions in 2019, 2020, and 2022 with support from Volkswagen Foundation; to build a critical mass of skilled and competent young natural resource scientists in Africa through training, capacity building and mentorship. Session 4 (2025) will target competent young scientists (MSc and PhD students) in Africa and Germany to further develop their knowledge and skills in systems thinking, advanced data collection and analysis, and application of emerging digital technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), internet of things (IoT), and embracing transdisciplinary approaches. In addition, we include an ideation workshop where students can work on real problems to come up with solutions for sustainable transformations in natural resource use.

Organizers: Leibniz Universität – Hannover (Germany), University of Antananarivo, University of Abomey Calavi (Benin), Makerere University (Uganda), University of Ghana (Ghana), University of Parakou (Benin), The Technical University of Kenya, with financial support from the Volkswagen Foundation (Germany).

Venue and dates: Nairobi, Kenya, 16-28 November 2025

Target: MSc and PhD students, early in the program of less than 35 years of age from any university/research institution in either sub-Saharan Africa or Germany with an interest in natural resources management.

Participants and Scholarships: The course is fully funded and open to 20 MSc and PhD students from Africa, and 5 from Germany. Funding will cover the costs of air ticket, accommodation, meals, visa, and transportation. However, participants will cover the cost of their travel health insurance.

Topics

SNRM Summer School Session 4: Transformative pathways in biodiversity management and conservation.
This summer school is designed to deliver four modules over a two-week period. The modules are designed to enable the students to acquire new ways of designing data collection protocols and analysis for transformative sustainable natural resources management.

Module 4.1: Data collection I
Skills in data collection for a transformative and sustainable management of natural resources (water, wildlife, forest, land, livestock, crops) monitoring and data collection techniques; remote monitoring tools, earth observation system data, e.g. satellite data sources, LIDAR, and UAV aerial images. Collect and analyse In-situ data on biotic and abiotic parameters, map and analyse data using R or Google Earth Engine, field data collection and retrieving data from online databases.

Module 4.2 Data management and processing
Introduction to tools and methods of managing large and diverse data sets of natural resources such as time series, spatial, directional, and multivariate data. Practicals will include data storage, organization and conversion into various formats using databases such as PostgreSQL and statistical programming software such as R and Python; scripts.

Module 4.3 Ecological monitoring, modelling and management
This module aims to teach participants how to anticipate and validate trends that can be observed in various ecosystems. Lectures include ecological monitoring and its design; population monitoring studies; metrics in population monitoring; methods for monitoring and assessing marine ecosystems; human ecology to socio-ecological systems; climate change impact of ecosystems; suitability assessments; overview of the principles underlying wildlife monitoring and prediction systems for climate change adaptation. Practicals will include field data collection (individual and group); ecological data analysis using R or PAST; modelling and experiencing the behaviour of complex systems using Vensim.

Module 4.4 Natural habitat restoration ideation lab
This module is designed to spur students’ innovation and creativity, and to help students comprehensively identify interdependencies across the 17 SDG goals. Participants will be trained on ideation processes for solutions and intervention for transformative natural resource management. They will work collaboratively in small groups on case studies and develop pathways of transformative sustainable natural resource management. Examples of projects include forest (mangrove) ecosystem and habitat restoration, improved technologies for agricultural production, nature-based solutions for improving water quality, and reversing land degradation.

Language: The course will be delivered in English. Participants are expected to be fluent in writing and speaking the English language.

How to apply

Applicants are kindly requested to fill in the application form available from https://snrmafrica.com/ and submit the following documents in English through the system.

  • a curriculum vitae (maximum 2 pages)
  • a letter of motivation (maximum 1 page)
  • a confirmation of university enrolment
  • a reference letter from the academic supervisor
  • project summary of MSc/ PhD project (1 page including objectives, methodology
    and key findings or expected outcomes).

Important dates
Application deadline: 30th June 2025.
Announcement of accepted applicants: 15th August 2025.
Confirmation of attendance by selected participants: 12th Sept 2025.
Summer school held: 16 – 28 Nov 2025.

Further information is available from

The secretariat info@snrmafrica.com
Dr Lydia Olaka lydiaolaka@tukenya.ac.ke
Prof. Dr. Hartmut Stuetzel stuetzel@gem.uni-hannover.de

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