This project focuses on developing post-doctoral academic excellence in the priority areas i.e., Biological Sciences and Engineering (for UG), and Social Sciences and Humanities (for Makerere). It also intends to build upon Cambridge’s existing collaborations with both Universities to enhance their research excellence, and promote the recruitment and retention of the brightest academic staff at these regional hubs. Specifically, the project aims to achieve the following primary goals:

  • Strengthen faculty research capacity (through fellowship and mentoring)
  • Strengthen research management capacity
  • Develop joint research projects

CAPREx also aims to enhance the internal research competiveness of the most promising Ghanaians and Ugandan researchers, and encourage the establishment of North-South and South-South research collaborations and networks among the three partner institutions.

 

The UG component of the project is being championed by Professor Yaa Ntiamoa-Baidu of the Centre for African Wetlands. The project is being implemented in two phases: Phase 1 which was implemented over a three-year period from October 2012 to September 2015 and Phase II which is currently on-going from October 2015 to September, 2018.

KEY OBJECTIVES OF PHASES I & II

The project has three (3) strategic objectives as follows:

STRATEGIC OBJECTIVE 1:  Strengthening University Faculty Research Capacity

  1. Establishment of a Fellowship and mentoring programme (CAPREx Academic Fellowship Programme) targeting early post-docs and experienced mid-career post-docs. This activity focuses on the development of a selection of high performing faculty members at UG and involves faculty from the 2 universities spending some time at Cambridge to work with collaborators/ mentors on pre-defined academic projects.
  2. Establishment of a Cambridge-Africa Training Log system: The training log will provide new fellows with individually tailored, personal and professional development programs.

STRATEGIC OBJECTIVE 2: Strengthening Institutional Research Management Capacity:

Development of Research Management Capacity and skills at UG through:

  1. Scoping visits by Cambridge Research office managers followed by return study visits of research managers to the Cambridge research office with development of twinning and mentoring arrangements
  2. Training workshops at UG focusing on research methodologies that will expose faculty to modern approaches to investigating specific research problems as well as data analysis tools and techniques.
  3. Support for the development of research management policies, procedures and guidelines for best practice.

STRATEGIC OBJECTIVE 3: Enhancing International Research Competitiveness of Makerere University and the University of Ghana

This will be achieved through:

  1. Enhancement of Research capacity through training – this includes training in skills such as grant proposal and academic writing to be delivered as 3-day workshops.
  2. Establishment of research networks – this activity will link researchers in selected disciplines in Cambridge to UG and Makerere for collaboration, lessons learning and sharing; exchange of expertise, experiences and knowledge of new developments in the particular discipline in order to enhance research productivity.
  3. Development of joint research projects – this activity will allow UG and Makerere researchers to form partnerships and identify relevant research questions and jointly develop proposals to source funding for implementation of the research. The CAPREx project funds will support partners’ proposal writing meetings and funder interactions, to ensure that all logistical, ethical, administrative and financial issues are appropriately addressed.

EXPECTED SHORT TERM BENEFITS OF THE PROJECT TO UG

The CAPREx project provides enormous benefits for both academic staff and research support staff at UG as outlined below:

  • Skills, collaborations, qualifications and outputs of at least 15 fellows in academic roles at UG enhanced.
  • Research management systems at UG enhanced through the training and mentoring of six (6) research management staff and production of research management policies and manuals.
  • Number of publications in peer-reviewed journals by UG faculty improved and higher grant success rates

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About

The Cambridge Africa Partnership for Research Excellence (CAPREx project is a partnership program between the University of Cambridge in the UK, University of Ghana Legon and the Makerere University in Uganda

 

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