The Makerere University Deans’ Forum (MUDF) on Thursday 29^th September, 2022 held a half-day workshop, the third since the inaugural one held on 26^th February 2020. MUDF was formed following the Inaugural meeting of Deans and Directors in academic affairs held on 14^th June 2019 under the theme “Building Institutional Capacity for Researcher Development, Funding and Management of Sponsored Research”.

Organised by the Office of the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic Affairs)-DVCAA the third workshop was aimed at highlighting the purpose of the Deans’ Forum and Constitution as well as the role of Academic Leaders in the implementation of the Makerere University Strategic Plan 2020-2030 presented by the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe. The workshop further tackled Monitoring and tracking performance of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at Makerere University and provided a platform for sharing of experiences by the DVCAA and MUDF Patron, Prof. Umar Kakumba and two former Deans.

Role of Academic Leaders in Mak’s Strategic Plan

“A research-led university is described generally as having at least 30% of its student body as graduate students. However, our recent graduation statistics showed that only 10% of our graduands were graduate students, of which 108 were PhDs, and so we have a lot of work to do,” remarked the Vice Chancellor as he began his presentation.

Prof. Nawangwe shared that in line with improving this trend, a component of PhD training had been incorporated in the fourth round of the Makerere University Research and Innovations Fund (Mak-RIF). He added that if each of the approximately 900 staff with PhDs supervised another three PhDs, the university could graduate at least 500 PhDs every year.

On the innovation front, the Vice Chancellor shared that Makerere signed a Memorandum of Understanding with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on 20^th September 2022, aimed at establishing a state-of-the-art innovation hub to skill students in various sectors, with a view of empowering startups and creating jobs. “The ground floor of the Yusuf Lule Central Teaching Facility is going to be our hub area and we hope that when this phase succeeds, UNDP will work with us to establish an industrial park at the Campus.”

Prof. Nawangwe therefore urged Deans as Academic Leaders to be at the forefront of setting the research agenda and priorities in their units. “Under Mak-RIF, we discussed with Government what areas of research we ought to prioritise but things keep evolving and Deans should be at the centre of discussing these changes as well as knowledge transfer partnerships.”

The Vice Chancellor singled out the Refugee Law Project (RLP) and Public Interest Law Clinic (PILAC) under the School of Law as well as the Infectious Diseases Institute (IDI) at the College of Health Sciences (CHS) as some of the units that were contributing enormously to communities through knowledge transfer. He nevertheless emphasized that knowledge transfer partnerships ought to ramped up across all units and publicised more rigorously.

Making a presentation on Delivering on the Role of Dean in Makerere, Prof. Umar Kakumba outlined; the curriculum, teaching and learning, research and innovations, taking the university to the community and academic support assistance as the five major niches the School heads oversee.

He added that Deans are entrusted with power and resources by their colleagues and the institution for which they must give account. “Leadership relates to the manner in which the power and resources that are entrusted to us are used to influence group behaviour towards the realization of our goals as a research-led, inclusive 21^st century university that can spark impact and transformation of our society.”

The DVCAA added that Deans by virtue of being members of Senate are a critical force in formulating academic policy that can guide, inform, support and foster the achievement of the institutional strategic plan.

Addressing himself to the changing context of Universities today, Prof. Kakumba emphasized that universities, beyond simply producing academic knowledge, must be seen to support the State in its development agenda and address emerging challenges of the global impact such as climate change, public health and food security. “We must increasingly show our organic linkage with the communities around us in terms of shared research.”

Former Deans Share Their Experiences

Prof. Ronald Bisaso served as Dean of the East African School of Higher Education Studies and Development (EASHESD) from 2015 to 2022 before assuming his current role as Deputy Principal, College of Education and External Studies (CEES). He said that his Deanship revolved around dealing with issues in the three niche areas of; higher education research, higher education policy and advocacy, and higher education practice.

The former Dean shared that the School by virtue of its small size had to deal with issues of limited capacity to facilitate a flagship taught PhD programme and limited resources. It overcame the former through multidisciplinary collaborations both within CEES and the College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHUSS), and the latter through aggressive resource mobilization.

“We won three Mak-RIF projects, small as we were, and combined, we got UGX 500million. We also participate in a research network where we coordinate with CODESRIA (the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa) and we have previously had a multi-institutional network where we sent six PhD students to Finland for six months, others were sent to South Africa and three staff for exchange, and we hope we can continue to build on these networks” reported Prof. Bisaso.

Presenting his experience, Prof. John Mango who served as Dean, School of Physical Sciences, College of Natural Sciences (CoNAS) urged his audience to always incorporate the theory of change in all their plans. A theory of change is a purposeful model of how an initiative—such as a policy, a strategy, a program, or a project—contributes through a chain of early and intermediate outcomes to the intended result[1].

“In whatever you want to do, you should think of objectives in line with guidance from above, you must identify activities to achieve what you want and what you want may be results at different levels such as immediate outputs and long-term impacts” explained Prof. Mango.

His presentation therefore covered; promoting excellence in research, resource mobilization, preparing human resource, improving on research environment and infrastructure, ensuring quality assurance mechanisms at all stages, facilitating training of high quality graduates, deepening collaborations with industry and community, promoting multidisciplinary research projects and creating, promoting alumni networks and the role of Deans in improving graduation rates.

Prof. Mango noted that research collaborations are an integral part of a research-led university for they lessen the burden on the Government’s resource envelope. He added that graduate training was an important component of fostering Makerere’s research-led aspiration and urged Deans to always be on the lookout for what regional bodies such as the Inter-University Council of East Africa doing to support this. He also proffered think tanks that conduct research relevant to national development as another way of attracting funding that can cater for graduate training.

To illustrate his point, Prof. Mango testified that he had “mobilised resources and trained 35 PhDs in Mathematics out of the approximately 60 PhDs that the country has,” adding that “raising funds is not an event, it is a process and when you are just starting, your percentage of winning is very low.”

All the aforementioned activities aimed at ensuring that the university achieves her research-led aspirations are guided by policy. The new Director of the Quality Assurance Directorate (QAD), Dr. Cyprian Misinde in his address informed Deans that his unit was developing matrices for policies.

“We shall be evaluating quality assurance based on your performance in these policies. And so it is very important that these policies are being discussed here” said the Director. He added that Deans are valuable partners in the quality assurance process, especially as the Directorate sets about establishing an efficient, effective and robust data system to aid accountability and decision making.

Monitoring and Tracking SDGs at Mak

Turning to the SDGs, Makerere University participated in its first Impact Rankings in the year 2022 and was ranked in the 401-600 band. Currently in their fourth edition, the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings are the only global performance tables that assess 1,406 universities from 106 countries/regions against the United Nations’ SDGs across four broad areas of research, stewardship, outreach and teaching.

According to the presentation by QAD’s Mr. Stephen Mpirirwe, Makerere performed best in SDG 17 (Partnerships for the goals) with a score of 83, followed by SDG 16 (Peace, justice and strong institutions) with a score of 64. Next was SDG 3 (Good health and well-being) with a score of 63.7, followed by SDG 5 (Gender equality) with a score of 39.6. The best performing institution globally, Western Sydney University, Australia scored 99.0, 93.3, 90.0 and 80.3 in SDGs 17, 12 (Responsible consumption and production), 6 (Clean water and sanitation) and 5 respectively. Please click here to view the detailed Impact Rankings for Makerere University.

MUDF’s Purpose and Constitution

Prof. Ronald Naluwairo who presented the MUDF Constitution noted that for purposes of inclusivity, the Forum is composed of Deans of Schools, Directors of Teaching Institutes including off-campus Centres such as the Makerere University Jinja Campus and the Principals and Deputy Principals of three-tier colleges such as the School of Law.

MUDF’s overall objective is to promote academic excellence through collective action, capacity building and harnessing each others’ capabilities, experiences and best practices. The Forum has six specific objectives namely to; Promote the highest standards of teaching and learning at Makerere University, Promote and provide leadership in cutting edge research and innovation at Makerere University and Build and strengthen the capacity of members of the Forum as academic leaders. Furthermore, the Forum proposes to; Promote debate and dialogue about issues concerning academic excellence, Advise Senate, University Management and other organs of the University about matters concerning teaching and learning, research and innovations, and Promote good governance at Makerere University.

Addressing the workshop the Chairperson, MUDF Executive Committee and Dean, School of Public Health, CHS, Prof. Rhoda Wanyenze said that the Forum was aimed at giving the 30 Deans a platform to meet and network beyond the business of Senate. “We are supposed to spearhead change in this large institution and we are supposed to work with one another to break silos and conduct multidisciplinary activities across colleges, but we cannot achieve this unless we know and understand each other.”

The Chairperson therefore paid tribute to the Patron and brainchild of MUDF, Prof. Umar Kakumba for his brilliant idea of bringing Deans together and thanked staff in the DVCAA’s Office for supporting the Executive Committee.

“This Forum is so important in terms of appreciating where we are headed as a University and what we all need to do to ensure that we get there, because we are best placed to shift Makerere to what we want to see” encouraged Prof. Wanyenze. She welcomed the new Deans to MUDF and urged them contribute ideas on how the Forum can be made more vibrant so as to make meaningful contribution to Makerere.

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[1] Serrat, O. (2017). Theories of Change In Knowledge solutions: tools, methods and approaches to organizational performance. Singapore: Springer. DOI:10.1007/978-981-10-0983-9_24