Organisation profile - Building Southern Research Capacity Project

University Science, Humanities and Engineering Partnerships in Africa Programme (USHEPiA)
Contact:	Ms Carol Ojwang, Programme Coordinator
Address:	UCT, Zambia
E-mail:	carol@protem.uct.ac.za
Tel:	00 27 21 6502822
Fax:	00 27 21 6505667
HTTP:	www.uct.ac.za/misc/iapo/ushepia/middle.htm
Type:	Regional NGO
Sector:	science, engineering and umanities
Geography:	in Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, south Africa, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania
Activities:	research partnerships, networking, training
Budget:	c. US$ 400,000 pa during the first four years 1995-1999
Profile:	USHEPiA was formed following the 1993 meeting of the Associationof African Universities to promote collaboration amongst established African researchers in the generation and dissemination of knowledge, and to build institutional and human capacity. The ultimate goal is to build on existing potential to develop a network of African researchers capable of addressing the developmental requirements of Sub-Saharan Africa. The aim is to turn Centres of Excellence into Networks of Excellence through: i) Identifying areas of strength on which to build; ii) Concentrating research in fields particularly appropriate to Africa's needs; iii) Ensuring mutual benefits in any collaboration; iv) Developing sustainable research collaboration; v) Emphasising staff development; vi) Sharing access to specialised facilities and vii) Producing joint research papers in quality journals.
Approach:	To do this, participating universities raise funds from the international community for: i) Post-graduate fellowships for staff development; ii) Sandwich MSc and PhD degrees where students work on topics of local concern jointly supervised by their home university and UCT; iii) Lecturing exchanges for semester periods; iv) Short courses; v) Joint research projects of mutual interest and vi) Exchange of external examiners.
Finance:	Launched with a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, the first 4-year phase was fuinded by Rockefeller, Coca Cola, the Ridgefield Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation - total expenditure c. US$ 1.6 million.
Notes:	An evaluation workshop in February 1999 was attended by 24 representatives from the eight USHEPiA partner universities, and additional Fellows and supervisors. Participants concluded that that USHEPiA had become a model for academic capacity development in Africa, and that the south-south networking it was establishing had come at a very opportune time as north-south resources were shrinking. The fact that the Programme was needs-driven by the partner universities and its flexibility were seen to be important factors in this success. An external evaluation later the same year (West & Shackleton 1999) concluded "There is no doubt that USHEPiA is achieving its aim of promoting research collaboartion ...in order to build institutional and human capacity. They found the main success factors to be: the wide consultation during the establishment of the network, the agreement of objectives, cooperative management with strong support from the secretariat at UCT, the flexible individual management of the fellowship scheme, enthusiasm, network development,the programme's multi-level, interacting linkages and the focus on sustainablity. See the web site for more information.