Makerere University is a member of the Consortium of Advanced Research Training in Africa (CARTA) and through the Directorate of Research and Graduate Training (DRGT) is currently hosting the Faculty and Administrator Workshop.
The CARTA Initiative aims at strengthening doctoral training, supervision and developing the institutional capacity of participating universities to conduct and lead internationally-competitive, cutting-edge research.
The training will go a long way in supporting Universities in Africa to realize this expectation.
High-quality research capacity that will ably address the myriad issues facing Africa and meeting the development needs of the continent requires research that is well conceptualized, conducted, analyzed, and published by Africans themselves.
The Workshop’s Day One on 21st July 2014 brainstormed on the critical role of incentives in sustaining the interest to publish. Many Colleagues from Kenya, Nigeria, Malawi, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ghana, and even South Africa believe that its only monetary rewards that will cause results although a few maintain that we should never land into the trap of commercialized publication “publish-walk-to-the-bank” syndrome.
Commenting on the proceedings from Day One, The Director, DRGT, Prof. Mukadasi Buyinza said “We also debated greatly on the importance of research support systems including the writing centre to help with the editorial work before submission of manuscripts.” Prof. Buyinza hoped that these writing centres would simplify publishing, “The thinking is that Scientists should not spend time finding the correct grammar, this should be delegated to language experts in the writing centre,” he added.
The three-day workshop will end on Wednesday 23rd July 2014.