New Open Research Hub for researchers in Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda

Are you a researcher in Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda who is interested in using open research approaches to make a real research impact? Join our Digital Hub for Open Research in East Africa, launching in December.

Across East Africa, communities are grappling with complex challenges – from adapting agricultural practices to a rapidly changing climate in Tanzania, to addressing the widening learning gap in Kenya through new approaches to primary teaching, to improving the nutritional status of households in rural northern Uganda, to finding new ways to help Rwanda’s growing young population into meaningful and dignified employment.

By establishing a digital hub for open research in East Africa, INASP’s new project, funded by the Templeton World Charity Foundation, will harness the transformative possibilities of open science to enable talented young East African researchers to bring new knowledge, fresh thinking and passion to change lives and livelihoods to bear on some of the most critical questions facing their nations and communities, and to deliver real impact.

We will equip 250 East African early career researchers – women and men –to navigate the research process and their local contexts using open tools, technologies and approaches confidently and skilfully and to design, deliver and communicate research that centres community needs, and that combines scientific rigour with the ability to position knowledge for impact.

The project will include:

• A digital community utilizing WhatsApp to facilitate peer sharing and collaboration
• An online learning programme covering core themes in open research practices, introducing researchers to key open science tools, and equipping them to incorporate these into their research - this online programme will start on January 14th.
• Training 25 open research champions to provide on-going support to their colleagues and students to extend and deepen the use of open research approaches in their institutions and region

How to register

Please register via Moodle here: https://learn.inasp.info/enrol/index.php?id=392

You will need to create a learn@inasp account if you don’t already have one. Please follow the instructions carefully (you may need to click on the above link again after registering your account). Make sure to join the WhatsApp community - the link is provided in Moodle.

For more information on the project, please see the INASP website. Please note that the Digital Hub and online learning programme is only currently open to a limited number of researchers based in Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda, or researchers of those nationalities based abroad. INASP aspires to roll out this training and support more widely in the future.