The Carnegie Corporation of New York has awarded grants worth nearly US$10 million to strengthen postgraduate research and training in four universities in Ghana, South Africa and Uganda, it said in a statement earlier this month. The funding will support training for some 120 postgraduates and fellowships for a further 80 scholars.
The award is part of Carnegie's efforts "to accelerate the development and retention of the next generation of academics". Since 2008 the US foundation has spent $23 million on initiatives to tackle Africa's critical shortage of university researchers and teachers.
The grants will fund activities at the University of Ghana, Legon, the universities of Cape Town and the Witwatersrand (Wits) in South Africa, Makerere University in Uganda and the International Foundation for Science.
The project is initially for two years, renewable on a review of performance, George Soule, manager of strategic communications for the Carnegie Corporation, told
University World News.The four universities were selected after "extensive consultations" from an initial mix of nine institutions and from a pool the Corporation had worked with in the past decade. They were, Soule added, all leading institutions with a long and varied history of accomplishments in academic training and research in selected fields.
"They also all possess extensive international connections. They are hubs for the higher education sectors in their countries and regions and are likely models for the delivery of excellence in postgraduate training and research on the continent," he said.
According to the statement the funding will be used to:
* Provide postgraduate training support for more than 120 masters and PhD holders across a range of disciplines.
* Create more than 20 postgraduate fellowships at the four universities.
* Award competitive research fellowships to up to 60 young scientists.
* Support young academics to participate in regional academic seminars and international conferences.
* Establish or strengthen postgraduate supervision and mentoring, including providing skills training for supervisors and mentors.
* Develop seminars and workshops to advance the quality of research, including proposal and scientific writing.
* Create connections and academic exchange programmes within Africa and internationally, including linkages and collaboration with Diaspora academics.
The initial grant announcement was made by Vartan Gregorian, President of Carnegie Corporation of New York, during a two-day conference on "Developing and Retaining the Next Generation of Academics" held in Nairobi last month.
A new generation of skilled and dedicated academics, Gregorian said, would "help to nurture a cohort of women and men able and eager not only to contribute to the continued development of democracy and civil society on the African continent but also help their countries become full participants in global progress."
Omotade Akin Aina, Carnegie's Programme Director for Higher Education and Libraries in Africa, explained:
"Just as the demand for skilled professionals, civil society leaders, and scientists capable of enhancing economic competitiveness and nurturing development reaches a critical point, the supply of well-trained educators and researchers most capable of training Africa's future leaders are retiring, inadequately trained or not sufficiently inspired to join academia in the first place."
But the problem was not insurmountable: "Carnegie Corporation is joining in a commitment by African academics to revitalise the continent's intellectual environment by rebuilding universities as centers of research and training excellence," said Aina.
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