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The Impact of Swedish Research Collaboration with Makerere University, Uganda (2000-2020)

Published

5 years ago

February 21, 2020

Mark Wamai

The Vice Chancellor-Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe in the report shares how Swedish support deepened research at Makerere University, Kampala Uganda.

The Makerere University research capacity building program supported by Sida started in 2000 running three phases to 2015 followed by the ongoing phase (Phase IV, 2015-2020). This funding has targeted the creation of research capacity and environment for Makerere University through training at Masters, PhDs and Post Doctorate levels; joint research activities among collaborating partners in Uganda and Sweden; Support to institutional reforms; infrastructural support: (ICTs and Library); Iganga-Mayuge Demographic Surveillance Site; Gender Mainstreaming and Quality Assurance.

Tremendous achievements have been registered involving the creation of an environment conducive to high-quality relevant research. Over 300 PhDs (over 30% of all the current PhDs at the university) have been trained to completion since the start of the program in 2000. The current phase has targeted training another 125 PhDs including 90 from participating public universities in Uganda (Kyambogo University, Mbarara University of Science and Technology – MUST, Gulu University and Busitema University). Curriculum for taught PhD has been developed in Mathematics at Makerere University and 20 students are registered on this curriculum. Other taught PhD curriculum has been supported in three colleges at Makerere University and all participating public universities. More than 200 supervisors at Makerere University and participating public universities have undergone training in quality supervision.

The publication profile of the university has greatly improved during the period of support from 72 in 2001 to over 382 in 2011 publications per year (Bunting et al. 2014). The current output is at more than 1000 publications as per citation indices. Most of the research considered in international citation databases is of very high impact. In addition to improved publication output, the PhD output has greatly improved from less than 20 PhDs graduating per year in 2000 to more than 70 PhDs graduating each year as of 2018. Of most significance in relation to knowledge generation is the tremendous networks that got ignited for the institution. The university is among the top 100 universities in the world in terms of connectivity with other top institutions, according to scimago (an agency that aggregates science evaluation resources).

In terms of equity, the Sida support targeted gender mainstreaming in the institution. This support to gender has moved the terrain to near level in students’ enrolment and generated some significant variation in staff ranks. In addition, the support to gender has spurred interest from other agencies like the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the MasterCard Foundation who have offered scholarships targeting female students.

Infrastructural support to the University Library, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and the Iganga Mayuge Demographic Surveillance Site have generated multiplicative benefits that will make it easy for future increments in the intervention. Some of the infrastructure and equipment to this end is available for use by other people inclined to the purpose of these establishments. For instance the university library is the National Referral Library and National Legal Repository.

The collegiate system at Makerere University was developed as a result of a reform process that was supported in the third phase of the Sida funding. The reforms in Research, Administration and Finance saw the development of the University’s Organizational Manual as well her Research Manual. These documents guide all officers of the university in ensuring the provision of quality services to her stakeholders especially students at the university. The quality assurance regime at the university has been greatly impacted with the institutionalization of mechanisms to support compliance to national standards as well international practices. Such mechanisms include self-assessment, tracer studies, tracking of graduate students and student evaluation of courses and teaching. Support in the current phase has seen the inauguration of the University Press with 6 inaugural books in 2019.

The Sida support has generated benefits that, in the university’s consideration, are beyond what could be expected in such a small span of time. The base for illuminating on this view is from the aspirations that university had in the year 2000 at a time when it was developing its strategic plan for the period 2000-2005. An assessment of the prevailing situation at the time of planning clearly indicated the state of affairs that university wanted to overcome; especially the state of research and that of infrastructure.

However, despite the tremendous achievements outlined in this report, there are still some areas that call for more work, and therefore it is still a work in progress. Of significance are: delays in completion rates of PhD training, an imbalance in funding between the humanities and science based disciplines, inadequate incentives for research and the infancy of partnerships in participating public universities. The inclusion of other participating public universities came towards the second half of the period of review, with inadequate intensity of activities. The collaboration with these universities mainly centred around PhD training, and yet insufficient capacity has been built in these universities as the project winds up. This then raises a level of uncertainty on how these universities will continue on their own in strengthening this training.

That notwithstanding, the impact of Sida is perhaps best told by some of the beneficiaries in explaining how this support has transformed them at both a personal and institutional level. Some of these beneficiaries have gone on to hold leadership positions such as becoming Vice Chancellors; Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe – Makerere University, Prof. Celestino Obua – MUST, Prof. Eli Katunguka – Kyambogo University and Prof. Paul Waako – Busitema University. This partnership successfully brought these Vice Chancellors and consequently their universities to work together towards enhancing research capacity in Uganda. This publication brings you their voices. In addition are the voices of other beneficiaries including College Principals and Heads of Department.

Please Click Here for the full report

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Special Exam Results -Diploma in Performing Arts 2025/26

Published

2 days ago

June 28, 2025

Mak Editor

The results for the 2025/2026 special entry examination for the Diploma in Performing Arts held on Saturday 17^th 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.

Diploma-Performing-Arts-2025-2026 Download

General

Mature Age Scheme Exam Results for 2025/2026

Published

3 days ago

June 27, 2025

Mak Editor

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.

Mature-Age-Entry-Exam-Results-2025-2026 Download

General

Call for Application: 2025 SNRM session 4 Summer School

Published

4 days ago

June 26, 2025

Mak Editor

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: 30^th June 2025.
Announcement of accepted applicants: 15^th August 2025.
Confirmation of attendance by selected participants: 12^th 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