Sweden has extended more funding to Makerere University to facilitate research for two years following the university’s request.
Yesterday, Mr Per Lindgarde, the Swedish Ambassador, and Prof Barnabas Nawangwe, the Makerere Vice Chancellor, signed the agreement to extend support worth more than Shs17b ($4.5m) that was approved in May this year.
Mr Lindgarde said this support targets PhD completion grants, quality assurance for local PhD programmes, development of relevant policies and implementation guidelines that have an impact on postgraduate training and environment research, among others.
“The aim is to consolidate the research capacity to generate knowledge and promote research uptake for national and regional development by 2022. This support is aimed at consolidating the achievement of the previous four phases of research cooperation,” Mr Lindgarde said yesterday in Kampala.
Mr Lindgarde added that all the five Ugandan public universities will benefit from the above activities as the support to those universities is channelled through Makerere University.
Last year, Sweden stopped funding Makerere University research projects, saying it was time for the Ugandan government to take over.
Following this, government extended Shs30b to Makerere University in the financial year 2019/2020 for research.
Prof Nawangwe said the new funding will be committed to consolidating the achievements of the previous Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency investments in Uganda and support the continuing 100 PhD students to complete their study programmes.
The current agreement with Swedish Embassy will end on June 30, however, Sweden has made an amendment to the agreement for two more years from July this year to June 2022.According to Makerere University, it has received a total support of $100m from Sweden since 2000.
Prof Nawangwe also said though money given to them for research is not enough, the Ministry of Finance has promised that as the economy improves they will increase research funding. “We received 700 applications. We funded only 200 with 30b it means we need three and half times… every year for research,” Prof Nawangwe said.
