By Rogers Wanambwa

KIU, Main Campus - On February 23rd, 2022, Kampala International University, KIU, received a Community Engagement Research Grant from the Declaration on Research Assessment, DORA, as part of a ten grant project to various institutions.

Prof. Stephen Curry, DORA’s Steering Committee Chair, said that “I’m very pleased that DORA has been able to offer a community grants program to support individuals and organizations working towards the implementation of the principles in the declaration.”.

KIU was among the 10 recipients carefully chosen after a meticulous review of ideas from more than 55 teams from nearly 30 countries. According to DORA, “The 10 awarded projects were carefully chosen by members of the Steering Committee based on how well the proposals involved and filled the needs of their community, as well as likelihood of success. Teams received up to $4,000 USD to support each of their projects”

The application for KIU was led by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (DVC), Research, Innovation, Consultancy and Extension (RICE), Assoc. Prof Chukwuemeka Diji, Deputy Director DRICE, Dr. Ademola Olaniyan, and Dr. Chinecherem Umezuruike.

The idea for the University’s application was based on “Workshop for Research Managers and Coordinators at Kampala International University (KIU) on the Institutional Goals and Values of Responsible Research Assessment”.

“This project will conduct a series of workshops for research managers, administrators, and academic leaders in KIU on the institutional goals and values of responsible research assessment in the university, focusing specifically on DORA’s vision, including DORA’s principles for institutions to implement a practical and robust approach to research assessment”

According to a statement from DORA, projects could be targeted to any level within an academic institution, including (but not limited to) reform efforts at the graduate program, department, library, or institution level, and should address one or more critical aspects of education, planning, implementing, training, iteratively improving, and scaling policies and practices.

“Research assessment reform is not a one-size-fits-all exercise. The DORA community grants program meets academic institutions at their current stage of readiness for assessment reform and provides resources to improve the ways decisions are made that impact academic careers,” said DORA’s Program Director, Anna Hatch.

The other institutions that received grants include - Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina, Indian Institute of Science, India, Unviersidad del Rosario, Colombia, The University of Notre Dame Australia, Australia, Japan Inter-institutional Network for Social Sciences, Humanities, and Arts, University Medical Center Utrecht, Netherlands, Projeto Métricas/Fapesp, Brazil, and the National University of Tourism, Venezuela.

About DORA Community Engagement Grants

The DORA Community Engagement Grant was set up because of the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment since its release in 2013. The community engagement grants program was to build on the momentum of the declaration and provide resources to advance fair and responsible academic assessment. The program sought to support a broad range of ideas to promote assessment reform at academic institutions, including raising awareness of the need for change, developing new policies or practices, providing training to evaluators on practical strategies for responsible academic assessment, offering practical guidance to job applicants, and more