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Mak, NC State and Regional Universities to Collaborate in Research

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The Senior Vice Provost, Global Engagement, North Carolina State University (NC State), USA, Dr. Bailian Li has commended Makerere University (Mak) for its great contribution towards the rapid growth of Uganda through its research and teaching. This was on Wednesday, 13th March 2019 in Telepresence Centre, Senate Building where he was giving closing remarks at the end of the East African Higher Education Summit. Makerere University together with North Carolina State University held a summit with national and regional Universities with the purpose of developing strategies to strengthen higher education in East Africa. This is an expansion of the partnership between Mak and NC State established in 2015.

According to Dr. Bailian Li, NC State is aiming at addressing global challenges and the collaboration made with the East African Universities is likely to aid rapid development in the world’s education sector. He said that since it’s the education sector that leads to the country’s growth and development, NC State will seek to establish a physical presence in Makerere University to monitor the progress of all regional University programs.

The Gulu University Vice Chancellor-Prof. George Openjuru makes his remarks during the Mak-NC State summit

“USA was made strong and powerful by its Universities, China is doing wonders through its Universities, Malyasia is taking off because of its Universities, Africa will only achieve its best when its Universities work harder and harder to develop it and I believe that Universities in East Africa can improve on the region’s development through improving the education sector,” said Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe

Prof Nawangwe also noted that Universities are popular because of the great impact that they have on the country and its people and in the same way, Makerere University became popular for its high quality of education and research. He encouraged the Vice Chancellors of other regional Universities to join hands and make good use of the opportunity that has been provided by NC State.

Dr. Gertrude Kiwanuka represented Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST) at the Mak-NC State Summit

“We have the potential and out of this summit, we can do it, let’s use the unique opportunities that each University has to uplift East Africa’s education sector,” added Prof. Nawangwe

During the summit, Vice-Chancellors and senior representatives of Universities signed a communiqué expressing their commitment to further deepen the strategic partnership between the collaborating institutions. Reading out the communiqué, the Director, Directorate of Research and Graduate Training (DRGT), Prof. Buyinza Mukadasi noted that the Vice Chancellors committed themselves to:

1.    Building capacity and pursuing excellence in research, teaching and scholarship.
2.    Increasing mobility of staff and students and strengthening regional level training through;
a)    Leveraging joint graduate programs
b)    Developing and retraining quality faculty to conduct high-quality research, teaching and community engagement.
c)    International competitiveness of East African institutions of higher education,
d)    Assuring the quality of educational provision against agreed benchmarks of excellence.

Prof. Peter Wanderi, Principal Corporate Services, Mount Kenya University (MKU) represented his institution

Prof. Buyinza also noted that the partnership has been expanded to include other Universities of East Africa such as; Gulu University (Uganda), Mount Kenya University (Kenya) and Mbarara University of Science and Technology (Uganda).

In their joint communiqué, the Universities underscored the importance of multilateral collaboration as an instrument to address current and future global challenges namely; food security, climate change and public health through community engagement.

Article by Rachael Kanyi, Volunteer, Mak Public Relations Office

Mark Wamai

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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.

Mak Editor

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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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