• Suda has urged the vice chancellors to give women leading roles in coordinating the projects.
• She wants universities to develop the capacity to not only attract funding for their projects but also attract new ones to sustain them.
Local universities should strengthen their capacity to not only attract but also retain donor funding for their research projects, education Chief Administrative Secretary Colleta Suda has said.
Suda said most donor-funded projects tend to end without achieving their objectives when the funding is cut or not renewed because the universities do not develop a mechanism for their sustainability.
The projects should also be designed to be self-sustaining, she said.
Suda wants the universities to invest in research that is directly “linked to economic transformation through the development of new technologies that address our challenges.”
Speaking while opening a regional conference of centres of excellence universities from Eastern and Southern African, Suda said that the projects’ management should not just become geared towards securing the funding but also be self-sustaining even after the donors are gone.
Professor Suda also urged the university leaders, especially those participating in the Africa Centers of Excellence project to give women scholars in their ranks leading roles in managing the projects.
“Otherwise you will be perpetuating the stereotype that women do not have adequate capacity to meaningfully manage technical undertakings, particularly in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics,” she said.
Suda said it was crucial for researchers to have a gender parity approach to enable them have a diverse and balanced view in their undertakings.
“University chancellors and team leaders must appoint women to work side by side with their male colleagues as lead scholars and researchers in the project in order to attain a fair face of both genders,” Suda said, adding that “the table is big enough for all of us.”
The two-day conference brings together universities from seven countries, among them Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, South Africa among others taking part in a centre for excellence project funded by the World Bank.
Kenyan universities taking part in the project include Moi, Egerton and Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology.
Suda also challenged the universities to embrace specialisation in their various disciplines to effectively impact the lives of the people and the societies in which they operate.
“The centres of excellence should provide leadership, best practices and training in their focus area. It is hence important [they ask the questions]; it’s excellence in what, and for what?” she said.