Makerere writing centre starts operations

Makerere University writing centre, which was unveiled last month, has started operating.
Its main aim is to strengthen research, grant writing and publication at the oldest university in the country.
The Principal Investigator of Makerere, Prof Fredrick Muyodi told this publication that the centre, whose office has been temporarily mounted in the Main Library, has started training the researchers and and research managers.

He said the centre has since its launch conducted at least three training sessions with three more in offing.
“The centre is at this time restricted to only Makerere staff but with time, we plan to open up to staff from other Universities, starting with the public ones. This is expected to kick start next year,” Prof Muyodi said.
Without disclosing the financial implication and specifications, Prof Muyodi said that they plan to have a larger for the centre within the university. The space is slated to house offices, rooms for training as well as the needed equipment like ICT.
 
Rationale
The development comes after the University Senate approved management’s proposal to cut the number of undergraduate students by 10 percent effective next academic year (commencing in August), in its move to become a research-led institution.
Last month, this publication broke a story of Makerere University’s plans to reduce its intake of undergraduate students by 5,000.  The numbers to be slashed are of undergraduate students pursuing diplomas or first degrees in humanities while slots for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) courses will remain untouched. 

While launching the centre last month, the university management also revealed that they conducted a needs assessment study and identified a number of challenges hindering research at the institutions.
Among the key challenges include failure by researchers to write enticing grants proposals, mentorship gaps, failure to locate right funders and failure to analyse policies put in place by the research funders.

It is against the above background that Makerere University partnered with Michigan State University, in the United States of America, to set up the research centre.
Michigan State University is one of the best research institutions in the world and with funding from the US mission in Uganda, the institution wants to train researchers at Makerere University including early career and research managers to intensify their research through grant writing and publication.
With the research centre, Makerere will be able to compete for the research funds which are usually competitive among scholars.

The Vice Chancellor of Makerere University, Prof Barnabas Nawangwe, who was represented by Mr Edward Bbale, from the directorate of research and graduate school, said all the 10 colleges at the institution should must utilise the new centre to produce research.
These should, according to Prof Nawangwe, conduct research in challenges affecting the country such as climate change, poverty, population growth and unemployment and come up with solutions.
 
“This project is timely as it is slated to build capacity that will work on solutions to challenges affecting the country,” Prof Nawangwe said in his speech.
 
The US ambassador, who was represented by Ms Amy Peterson, cultural affairs officer at the US mission in Uganda, said since Makerere tops in research in East Africa, the mission has decided to link Ugandan universities with those in the US to solve future problems.
On January 31, the Webometrics Ranking of World Universities ranked Makerere University as the best in the country and in East Africa as far as research is concerned and number 13 in Africa.
 
Prof Muyodi said they are hopeful that with the research writing centre now in operation, the number of research and publications will go up, something that will improve the ranking of the institution.
“Universities are ranked based on research and number of publications. Once our capacity is enhanced, the university will get on top of research not only in the country but on the continent,” Prof Muyodi said.