Faculty, students and staff at Aga Khan University (AKU) have been challenged to explore innovative ways in which they can inculcate research in their daily work.
The call was made at the launch of the inaugural five-year Research Strategic Plan (2019-2023) led by the Medical College and School of Nursing and Midwifery (SONAM), East Africa.
The goal of the strategic plan is to guide faculty-wide academic program development, in line with AKU’s vision to become a global research university through enhancing of its research activities across campuses in Nairobi, Dar-es-Salaam and Kampala.
AKU Provost and Vice President Academics, Dr Carl Amrhein said the strategic plan is critical to research that responds to the real needs of communities and people.
“In the global context, we are an academic health center, which means that every one of us is expected to engage in clinical practice, teaching and research for the service of the profession. Ultimately, the goal of research is to make life better for the communities that we serve,” said Dr Amrhein.
The plan outlines AKU’s commitment, through the Medical College and SONAM, in producing health professional leaders through delivery of strong research programs, best practice in delivery of health services and partnerships with regional governments.
Prof Robert Armstrong, Dean, Medical College for East Africa, said the plan will enable AKU to attain excellence in health research with focus on improvement of health and wellbeing of the East African people.
“In order to be effective, the strategic plan must be owned by all of us and I would encourage the faculty and staff to embrace the plan and explore ways in which they are able to advance the plan through their individual engagement,” said Prof Armstrong.
Prof William Macharia, Associate Dean Research, said: “As an institution, we want to focus on high quality research with high impact on the population of Eastern Africa and beyond that would be strongly aligned with national health research priorities for relevance and impact. This will be achieved by building strong partnerships with public sector health policy makers, health institutions and communities.”
The plan is supported by five strategic themes namely; entrench institutional research culture, create conducive research work environment and infrastructure, invest in development of research faculty, build partnership for higher scope and impact of research and focus on research with high impact on population.
