Academics from across sub-Saharan Africa gathered in Cambridge this week to share knowledge and attend talks on how to build greater capacity in their research support offices.
Academics from across sub-Saharan Africa gathered in Cambridge this week to share knowledge and attend talks on how to build greater capacity in their research support offices.
That鈥檚 the core value for universities: do research that will impact our people and our communities
William Alpha, 探花直播 of Makeni, Sierra Leone
探花直播 administrators from Uganda, Namibia, Ghana, Botswana and Sierre Leone took part in collaborative workshops, heard from speakers such as 探花直播 of Cambridge Pro-Vice-Chancellor Eilis Ferran on the importance of administration to researchers and pored over the best practices for contracts, due diligence, audits, impact statements and applications.
探花直播GCRF听Africa Initiative鈥檚 Capacity Building 2019 programme provided a forum for African university research office administrators to share their experiences, hear from the experiences of the Cambridge Research Office and develop their own unique solutions to the challenges of building capacity in the administration of grants and research in Africa.
鈥 探花直播purpose of the programme is to help universities in the development of their research management support structures in the grants life-cycle,鈥 said programme coordinator Debbie West-Lewis from the Cambridge Research Office.
Participants said the programme was as valuable for its insights into best practice at a global university as it was for discovering the shared problems and solutions at institutions across the African continent.
鈥淚t鈥檚 given us an opportunity to bounce ideas off each other and share ideas that will be quite useful for us as an institution to better serve our academics,鈥 said Mercy Mwaura, Director of the Office of International Relations and Projects at the 探花直播 of Makeni in Sierra Leone.
Botswana Institute for Technology Research and Innovation Knowledge Commons and Research Manager Kgomotso Radijeng said it was refreshing to hear that even ancient universities with global reputations such as Cambridge also have their challenges.
鈥淭hey鈥檝e been able to share with us how they resolve their challenges,鈥 she said. 鈥淪o we shouldn鈥檛 despair.鈥
听William Alpha from 探花直播 of Makeni in Sierre Leone said that the programme deepened his belief in capacity building as a key cornerstone to driving better research and helping Africa鈥檚 universities make a real difference at home.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 the core value for universities: do research that will impact our people and our communities,鈥 he said.
One of the key takeaways all of the group agreed on was the newly formed network of support they鈥檝e created for themselves with colleagues from the programme.
They have all joined up in a new WhatsApp group.
鈥淣ow we have a network and you know when you have a problem you can call up and say I鈥檓 struggling with this,鈥 Radijeng said.
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