Spearheading research, innovation to address society’s many challenges

MKU research centre                                           Dr Francis Wamakima Muregi,

                                                                              Director, Research, Grants and Endowments

Society embraces a university’s existence if it addresses the people’s challenges. Mount Kenya University has moved a notch higher by creating knowledge, with senior staff’s research proposals attracting funding at an unprecedented rate. For a university aged just eight but whose heritage stretches 20 years back, MKU has done remarkably well in research.

Dr Francis Wamakima Muregi, the Director, Research, Grants and Endowments, says the young university has made progress in its quest to generate knowledge.

“Because this is the hallmark of academic excellence, MKU had to start undertaking research.”

“As a young university, we cannot afford to sit back like established ones. We need to generate income through research while also providing solutions to challenges facing society,” he says.

This journey began with a single researcher and his assistant but today MKU has a fully-fledged research centre. This promotes centralised use and management of research equipment and facilities. It also facilitates the establishment of research and academic programmes at undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

In the beginning, the research output was poor with staff publishing five to 10 publications every year. Even the university faculty was young.

The university made it easy for its researchers to publish their work. “Publishing in journals requires money,” says Dr Muregi. “We pay for our faculty. If they attend conferences, we sponsor them to disseminate their research findings.” 

These days, MKU staff  register 40 to 50 research publications every year, an indication that the university is developing into a research hub. Staff members also supervise postgraduate students who also do research.

“We are encouraging research among staff and students, not for job promotion but to address the challenges of our communities,” says Dr Muregi.

“No university in Kenya teaches a unit called ‘innovation.’ But we would like to see our staff and students innovate and generate ideas that address problems facing our communities. Some innovators are not even graduates yet.”

This initiative has seen Netfund, which supports environmental initiatives, fund two innovations by MKU.

The university has an initiative dubbed MKUIP – an innovators’ platform – that brings together young innovators from the university and experienced ones from outside. The idea is to bring mentors who will guide the young researchers.

Efforts to promote research at MKU over the last three years have borne fruit as funding starts to trickle in. “Research is expensive and you cannot undertake it without funding,” observes Dr Muregi. “We are happy that we attracting funding from various sources.”

Last year, D Jesse Gitaka, one of the university’s lecturers received two grants totalling Sh50 million to undertake health research. The Sh10 million he received from the Global Fund and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is for research into the ravages of malaria and bilharzia. The Sh40 million is for research into ways of reducing deaths among newborns in Bungoma County.

This year the Directorate of Research and Development received a Sh90 million grant from the Templeton World Charity to promote closer ties between science and faith under the auspices of the Kenya Christian Science Association (KCSA).

According to Dr Muregi, this will help close the gap between science and religion. He cites the controversy that hit the vaccination of children in Kenya when the church challenged the exercise as an example of a misunderstanding that can be ironed out through the KCSA initiative.

MKU, asserts its Director of Research, is also passionate about human health and specifically, non-communicable diseases.

“Sub-Saharan Africa has for long invested in the control and management of communicable diseases,” he notes. “But non-communicable diseases like cancer, hypertension and diabetes have become a big public health burden that must be addressed. At MKU, we are establishing a centre for non-communicable diseases and mental health (Cencom). Both have been neglected by the public health system.

“We hope the centre will be ready in six months. It will spearhead the management, prevention and research in these two areas.

This research will be aligned to MKU’s strength of training in human health sciences like pharmacy, clinical medicine and nursing. These are courses we offer at the university and the research will enable us to optimise the health training facilities we have.”

According to Dr Muregi, the university promotes and encourages staff and students to undertake quality research. “Original research is crucial, so we developed a plagiarism policy. Before staff and students publish their findings, we subject their work to anti-plagiarism software.”