The university has come a long way from the under 1,000
students it used to graduate in the 1980s.
We may turn up our noses at the quality
of the graduates that continue to make their way into the workplace but that we
can churn them out at this rate is a good start to eventually improving their
quality.
But more encouraging than the increase out turn is
Makerere’s increasing research output.
According to Makerere’s vice-chancellor professor Ddumba
Sentamu the university has received about sh184b to carry out research in
various areas. The research grants have come from private corporations, aid
agencies and academic institutions abroad.
The research has not be done for its own sake but has
provided useful findings with real time applications in our environment. Ddumba
said as a result of research carried out here it has been determined that the
anti-malarial drug Coartem should not be prescribed in combination with certain
TB drug. When the two taken together Coartem’s efficacy is reduced
significantly. Also there has been research which allows for the accurate
detection of sleeping sickness parasites in the Tse tse fly.
And that is just
the tip of the iceberg.
University’s are not only supposed to transmit knowledge but
also add to the stock of the current knowledge available. With the speed of
change in the world university’s are increasingly being judged on their latter
rather than their former role.
Makerere university is currently grappling with the
challenge of being a public university and the scarcity of resources that
entails and funding its own activities. The reality is that for fear of failing
to meet its public mandate of educating as many Ugandans as it can, the tuition
fees charged cannot reflect the true cost of the service provided.
The deficit has been bridged – sporadically and
half-heartedly, by government.
The new knowledge that comes out of their research efforts
are valuable intellectual property, which if handled well can provide income for
the institution not only from grants but from royalties and licenses long into
the future.
Harvard University and gets upwards of $750m (about sh2
trillion) in research grants while Oxford University earns about £500m (about
sh2trillion) annually. Oxford
University’s wholly owned, Isis Innovation Ltd in 2011 made more than sh16b in
technology transfer services – essentially making the university’s research
findings commercially available.
So in pushing research Makerere is on to a good a thing by
many measures and beyond providing manpower for the growing needs of the nation
the university can take its rightful place as the driver of the economic
transformation agenda in coming years.
The aforementioned Isis Innovation Ltd not only licenses the
university technology to third parties but also is involved in providing seed
money for entrepreneurs looking to commercialise these ventures, a lucrative if
the supported ventures become fabulously profitable. In 2005 Stanford
University – Silicon Valley’s hub, made $336m (sh900b) from selling its stake
in Google, for instance.
As it stands now most
of Makerere’s research funding seems to come from foreign agencies, which is
all very nice, but government or local corporations need to fund research into
subjects that are of immediate concern to ourselves.
For example a funder in New York may finance research into
the importance of sibling positioning in predicting success, which would make
for interesting reading but not necessarily have far reaching impact in Uganda
as a study in to medical delivery systems in our low income environment.
Makerere should be supported in its increasing emphasis on
research by the government and the society at large because research feeds into
innovation which will make transformation of our economy more than just a pipe
dream.
