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Enhancing Research, Publications and Innovation in Upcoming African Universities by Mouhamad Mpezamihigo, PhD & Wardah Rajab-Gyagenda, PhD A paper presented to the 5 th Biennial INORMS 2014 Congress held between 10 th and 13 th April 2014 at the Hilton Hotel, Washington DC, USA.

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  1. Enhancing Research, Publications and Innovation in Upcoming African UniversitiesbyMouhamad Mpezamihigo, PhD &Wardah Rajab-Gyagenda, PhDA paper presented to the 5th Biennial INORMS 2014 Congress held between 10th and 13th April 2014 at the Hilton Hotel, Washington DC, USA

  2. www.iuiu.ac.ug

  3. PRESENTATION OUTLINE • BACKGROUND • EAST AFRICAN UNIVERSITY STATISTICS • THE STUDY • SUMMARIZED SURVEY DATA • MAJOR CHALLENGES • MAJOR CONCLUSIONS

  4. BACKGROUND

  5. BACKGROUND • Over 10 years, student enrollment in Ugandan higher education expanded by 10% and university licensing by 30%. • More public and private tertiary institutions have been started. • In 1988 IUIU pioneered private higher education in Uganda. In the past 25 years it focused largely on teaching, learning and staff development. • By 2013, 34 new universities were established in Uganda and several in Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi (the East African Federation/Community). • Each country in the East African Federation has a national regulatory Agency that accredits both academic programmes and institutions. • Many of the upcoming universities have recently established research offices/departments, and are engaged in limited research activities.

  6. LOCATION OF EA IN THE CONTINENT

  7. MAP OF EAST AFRICA Source: maps-africa.blogspot.com, 8/4/2014

  8. EMERGENCE OF HE IN EA COUNTRIES • Higher education is seen as an instrument that develops individuals, society and national economies. • Emerging policy changes that allow regulation of Universities and Tertiary Institutions include: • Act 2001 as amended- for Uganda; • Universities Act, No. 42 of 2012 as the successor to the Commission for Higher Education which was established under Universities Act Cap 210B of 1985 for Kenya; • Universities Act (Chapter 346 of the Laws of Tanzania) for Tanzania; • Public institutions can not absorb all the qualified students in the region nor can government afford to finance them (M. Mpezamihigo, 2012).

  9. EAST AFRICAN UNIVERSITY STATS

  10. RANKING OF UGANDA HE EXPANSION BY CATEGORY (2006-2010)-Analysis TABLE 1

  11. RANKING OF UGANDA HE EXPANSION BY CATEGORY (2006-2010)-Cont.… TABLE 2

  12. STUDENT ENROLLMENT IN UGANDAN HE TABLE 3 Source: NCHE - 2006 and 2010 State of Higher Education in Uganda publications. Adopted from M. Mpezamihigo (2012). Universities in Uganda are currently offering more than 2000 Academic Programmes - (danger of duplications)

  13. KENYA UNIVERSITIES STATISTICS BY JUNE 2013 • 22 Public universities • 9 Public University Constituent Colleges • 17 Chartered Private Universities • 5 Private University Constituent Colleges • 12 Private Universities with Letter of Interim Authority • 2 Registered Private Universities Source: www.cue.or.ke (April, 2014)

  14. TANZANIA UNIVERSITIES STATISTICS BY APRIL 2014 • 11 Public universities • 4 Public University Constituent Colleges • 17 Private Universities • 15 Private University Constituent Colleges • 3 Centers for Public Universities • 11Centers for Private Universities Source: www.tcu.go.tz (April, 2014)

  15. THE STUDY

  16. THE RESEARCH SCOPE • This paper explores steps taken by East African universities to establish the following: • Research offices/departments, • Research publication and innovation agenda, as well as • Efforts to mobilize research funding. • The paper also highlights challenges these universities face in: • Enhancing research, publication and innovation strategies, • Building viable infrastructure, • The highly competitive and global world of research grants, • Funding faculty and student research, as well as • Supporting faculty professional development • 33 universities were surveyed, largely Ugandan based

  17. THE SURVEY • Questionnaires were designed and pre-tested. • Preliminary data were collected from 33 universities. • Data were processed and analyzed to provide the basis of this paper presentation. • There was limited time to cover the entire East African region. • There is plan to collect additional data. • The study is ongoing

  18. SUMMARISED SURVEY DATA

  19. 81.8% Ugandan 18.8% Other East African Countries 75.8% Private 24.2% Public 84.9% Established after 1990 (inclusive) 15.1% Established before 1990

  20. SOME DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS TABLE 5 TABLE 6

  21. FIGURE 1

  22. RESEARCH OFFICE, UNIT, DEPARTMENT OR DIRECTORATE • 55% have a research Directorate • 30% have a research unit • 24% have a research department • The study could not establish other details of unit, department or directorate FIGURE 2

  23. RESEARCH AGENDA, POLICY AND PUBLICATIONS PER YEAR TABLE 7 TABLE 8 TABLE 9 TABLE 10

  24. RESEARCH BUDGET ALLOCATIONS FIGURE 3 TABLE 11

  25. SOURCES OF RESEARCH FUNDS FIGURE 4

  26. MAIN RESEARCH COLLABORATORS FIGURE 5

  27. UNIVERSITY RESEARCH WEB-BASED PORTALS • Only 30% of the universities surveyed had their research related information uploaded on the university official website. • Even those that uploaded the information, most of it was scanty. • Lack of information on the website did not mean that no research, publications and innovations are taking place but that very few if any outside the university settings are aware of what is going on. • Recent (March 2014) universities exhibitions of universities and other tertiary institutions held in Kampala Uganda and organized by the National Council for Higher Education indicated that a lot is going on in the different universities but is not publicized.

  28. MAJOR CHALLENGES

  29. HE THE EAST AFRICAN REGION AND ITS CHALLENGES • Governance: • Failure to separate ownership from University management. • Staff Capacity: • Many lack senior staff to champion research and mentor young and upcoming scholars. • More teaching: • Lecturers carrying a lot of load and therefore do less of research and community out reach programmes.

  30. HE CHALLENGES Cont.… • Partnerships: • Lack of industry-university partnerships • Less Research: • Generating less of new knowledge and providing solutions and striving to remain relevant. • Facilities: • Lack of modern facilities such as research labs, libraries, student centres, sports grounds etc • Infrastructure: • Poor ICT Infrastructure and intermittent bandwidth and therefore low use of ICTs in teaching, research and community out-reach

  31. UNIVERSITY FINANCING-CRITICAL FACTOR • Majority (90% or above) depend on tuition collections for their recurrent budgets and less is allocated for research activities • No university can charge unit cost for courses it offers, not even for the non-laboratory based or field intensive academic programmes. • Frugal financial management is one of the greatest requirements for successful provision of private university education.

  32. FUNDING SOURCE DIVERSIFICATION • University own corporations, • Tuition fees (should not exceed 40% ) • External research grants (great potential exists) • Commercial and consultancy activities • Establishing endowments • Donations from Alumni and other philanthropists (remainsuntapped in African universities) • Government subventions and tax waivers (difficult to achieve)

  33. MAJOR CONCLUSIONS

  34. CONCLUSIONS • Teaching Focused: • Most of the Upcoming Ugandan Universities are mainly teaching and doing less of research due to several factors such as lack of adequate resources, teaching overloads, and issues affecting the general administration of universities. • Locally Funded: • Majority of universities obtain research funds mainly from internally generated resources, which are competed for by other activities like recurrent budgets and capital development. • New Institutions: • Many of the universities surveyed are still young and lack senior staff to mentor the young scholars into rigorous research, publications and innovation.

  35. CONCLUSIONS Cont.… • Low Publications: • Although majority indicated having established research offices, the publications output is still at its lowest. • Internal Collaborations: • Most of the collaborations are done internally within the university, thereby missing out on opportunities external to the home institutions. • Web-Postings: • Most of the universities do not post research information on their websites, which limits the visibility of the institution to the outside world.

  36. RESEARCH PENDING IN THIS STUDY • Additional data on Publications and innovations • Rolling out to universities outside Uganda in order to complete the original objective of the paper. • Comparing the same in other African regions (West Africa, North Africa and Southern Africa)

  37. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT • INORMS 2014 organizing Team and SRA International for accepting our abstract and presentation. • Research team: • Dr. Wardah Rajab-Gyagenda • Sharif Waliggo • Yusuf Kaweesi • Dr. Musa Matovu • Mrs. Amaal Kinene of Kampala University who facilitated the distribution of questionnaires to different Universities in Uganda. • Islamic University in Uganda who financed my trip to INORMS 2014.

  38. THANK YOU CELEBRATING 26 YEARS of existence (1988-2014) www.iuiu.ac.ug

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