Growing up, we were socialized to hold awe of academics, particularly those attending university as students; and more so those among university academic staff. In adulthood and in my endeavors as an academic researcher in Uganda, that glorious view of academia that I had, has been significantly dented.
My experiences with public universities of Uganda and with academics of universities of the global west, researching in Uganda validate findings of the Auditor General’s value for money assessment in ten universities covering a period of three years (2022/23 – 2024/25):
- Research outputs declining sharply, on average by about 63%.
- Low participation in research activities. In Gulu University only 4% of academic staff published research, case in point.
- Researchers listed on more than four concurrent projects, but delivered no completed outputs within the planned time frame.
The Auditor General’s assessment found the following to be contributory factors:
- Inadequate mentoring structures
- Limited training in proposal development
- Weak incentives for junior researchers
- Internal management weaknesses
- Poor supervision systems
- Sub-optimal utilization of available resources.
“Improved supervision of graduate studies, better coordination of research activities, and deliberate strategies to promote research dissemination” are among solutions the Auditor General proposes to solve the problem.
CLICK HERE to read more on the Auditor General’s Report, as published in Monitor.
Proposed solutions which validate our programming at CPAR Uganda Ltd for the achievement of our mission to stimulate the development, dissemination and widespread application of technologies suitable and adaptable to the social, cultural and economic conditions of Uganda.
This year, under our Dr. Paul Hargrave Memorial Centre Human Development Project, that we are jointly implementing with Canadian Physicians for Aid and Relief, we will train 30 research change agents, youth from disadvantaged backgrounds from and or resident in greater northern Uganda – West Nile, Acholi, Lango, Teso, Karamoja and Bukedi.
CLICK HERE to learn more about our Dr. Paul Hargrave Memorial Centre Human Development Project.
Whereas, training of 30 research change agents will be a good start, we appreciate that it is a drop in the ocean, so to speak. We, at CPAR Uganda, thus intend to reach out to Gulu University and Busitema University with the view of exploring synergies so as to better deliver on research outputs.
We invite you to walk this journey with us. Please consider making a donation in support of training community-based Tuberculosis research change agents and enable much needed empirical grassroots research to be conducted. And contribute to ending thousands of unnecessary and preventable deaths caused by TB in Uganda.
To learn more about our TB research agenda and to donate CLICK HERE
CPAR Uganda 
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