Capacity Building

This Section includes:

• Introduction
• Phases of Capacity Building Activities
• Capacity Development and Research Commercialization Webinar Series

Introduction 

Guided by the RSIF Capacity Building Strategy, RSIF offers various capacity building activities and workshops for the beneficiaries that include doctoral scholarships holders, host universities faculty and other stakeholders.

Phases of Capacity Building Activities 

The capacity building activities focuses on three phases:

1. Orientation Training: All new RSIF PhD students take a mandatory 6-day training, which covers the RSIF Program; and introductory trainings  on research ethics; sexual harassment; grievance redress mechanisms; PhD planning; proposal writing; information literacy; science communications; and data management, research methods and statistics. Courses are delivered through live streaming, led by icipe and RSIF partners, with support from local tutors at each AHU. See Cohort III orientation – July 2021 orientation material
2. Cross-cutting Training Courses: In this phase, RSIF students, AHU supervisors and faculty access a set of in-depth cross-cutting courses, including PhD supervision; sexual harassment and grievance redress mechanisms; information literacy and reference management; research methods and statistics, thesis defense training, scientific communication, science paper writing, grant proposal writing, entrepreneurship and IP, grant management, and research management and leadership. Courses are delivered through taught courses (by online video streaming) and online learning through Open Educational Resources (OERs).
3. Additional Capacity Building Activities include support for international accreditation of PhD programs at AHUs; lectures from domain experts and other leaders; strengthening the services of AHU libraries and improving access to international journals; and provision of an online tool for AHUs to monitor student progress and quality of supervision.

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Capacity Development and Research Commercialization Webinar Series

In recent years, innovation in various industries has been accelerating in the world. This trend increased the recognition of university roles in providing skilled graduates and promising technologies. Given this context, with a support from the Japanese government, the World Bank team in collaboration with Chitose launched a pilot to support the commercialization of university research for African universities through ACE and PASET. This pilot aims at expanding the research commercialization capacity at both university faculty and institutional levels and identifying the constraints and measures for creation and strengthening of enabling environments of commercialization.

All Recording material for the webinar series, including Presentations can be accessed here.