Dr Anthony Tibaingana, a lecturer at the college of business and management sciences at Makerere University, is one of the several who seems to be troubled by this phenomenon. Tibaingana shared that ideally, doctoral graduates should bring fresh knowledge, discover new things (innovation and invention), and develop new skills.
From Tibaingana’s view, much of the PhDs and research output currently produced by Makerere and other universities in Uganda, do not provide any significant contributions towards the societal change or development thus rendering them ‘worthless’.
“We need an honest discussion about this subject,” he said. “Ideally, PhDs are designed not to win kudos within the academic community, but rather to discover something new that will be useful for practitioners and have real social impact. Today, PhDs are not yielding any tangible results.”
Tibaingana added that even when a PhD graduate generates new knowledge or innovates something, most of them remain in laboratories or university libraries where they gather dust for years.
“It can often feel like contemporary academia is more about chasing citations,” he lamented. “Most academic work is shared only with a particular scientific community, rather than policymakers or businesses, which makes it entirely disconnected from practice.”
He added that several PhDs are not designed to solve any problem as they are dictated by funders: “Many people take up PhDs or research projects suggested by funders but have nothing to do with our societies, this leaves the societal problems unattended as researchers spend energies on issues that don’t matter.”
Prof Ezra Suruma, the chancellor of Makerere University, also stated that there are several challenges in communities that need to be addressed, emphasizing the need for researchers to focus on seeking concrete answers.
Suruma however stated that in order for PhDs and other research outputs to be useful, they must be translated into a format usable by members of the public and policymakers rather than being left on their own within Makerere.
“Conduct research that improves incomes, improves health, improves food security and resilience especially in these times of pandemics and environmental uncertainty. We need to be sensitive about the African condition and to endeavour to translate our efforts in research into a form that can easily be applied by members of the public as well as policy makers. So we want research to go out in the world and be applied and not only remain only here in the walls of Makerere University,” he told the graduands.
Similarly, Makerere University vice chancellor, Prof Barnabas Nawangwe also expressed similar concerns. Nawangwe, who claims that Makerere University’s research budgets have been steadily increasing in recent years, is quick to point out that the university is presently facing a problem in translating research and breakthroughs into services and products that would benefit the community.
He observed that as the oldest institution of higher learning transitions to a research-driven model, specific emphasis must be placed on ensuring that their research has a societal effect.
“Innovations have been recorded, many of them with potential for commercialisation. Together with grants won by the individual researchers and groups of researchers as well as institutional development funds from development partners. Makerere now has the biggest research budget of any university in Africa. Our biggest challenge is now transforming our research and innovations into goods and services,” said Nawangwe.
Although much of the research fails to be turned into products and services, Nawangwe adds that it should be noted that Makerere has in the recent years produced several prototypes – some with potential for commercialization but the innovators and the university as well lack resources to push them to the market.
Indeed, Zaid Kitagano, 2022 Makerere University PhD graduate whose thesis focused on the dynamics of university technology transfer, stated that throughout his study, he discovered that institutions are disconnected from society, policymakers, and businesses.
Kitagano went on to say that the gaps must be bridged by forging direct connections between communities, industry, and policymakers, as well as universities, to support the development of tangible services and products.
“Yes, I’m looking at how do universities work or corroborate or link with the industrial sector? I discovered that each is on its own. A university must be linked to society – many of our industries don’t have what we call a research and development department. If you have a research and development department, one can easily link up with the university so that you develop your innovations into prototypes and something very tangible. There is that missing link between the university and the industry. Also in a way, maybe the university does not trust the industry but also society sometimes does not also trust the university. They think universities are about theory only but the truth universities are also doing research and these two must be brought together,” said Kitagano.
A 2021 study by Makerere University’s college of education and external studies, found 1,179 PhDs in Uganda, of which 1,025 are from public universities while 172 are from private universities. However, the study also queried these PhD graduates, saying that most do not contribute significantly to the country.
The study blamed the lack of a curriculum for many doctoral studies, and the shortage of infrastructure to finance training among other factors to be responsible for the problem at hand.
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