Organisational Establishment of specialised centres to facilitate knowledge transfer and innovation, continuing education, and social engagement
FTBIC: Created to promote innovative research, provide practical solutions, and support the development of food and food- related enterprises
TDTC: Mandated to develop, apply, and transfer innovative research and technology to promote development
HURIPEC: Created to promote teaching, research and activism for human rights and peace issues
NSIC: Trains and mentors fresh graduates to enable them to develop software skills and solutions
CLCS: Provides CE and consultancy services
CLL: Offers short, non-credit bearing extramural courses
Multidisciplinary research and education centres that conduct research, provide teaching, and inform public policy
MISR: A multidisciplinary research and teaching institute that offers postgraduate education, conducts multidisciplinary research, and organises public dialogues CHDC: A multidisciplinary research and education centre that focuses on children and women’s health needs
Source: Author (based on classifications by Vidal et al., 2002).
communities and, thus, contributing to socioeconomic development (AASCU, 2002;
CIC Committee on Engagement, 2005; Civic Engagement Task Force Report, 2002;
Holland, 2001; Kellogg Commission, 1999; Magrath, 1999). This transformation, the interviewees noted, signals to the external communities that the university produces not only graduates and research papers, but also consumable products80 that can be found on supermarket shelves. Therefore, by promoting the TM, the university demonstrates that it seeks academic excellence and relevance and that it recognises that external communities also have knowledge and other resources from which it can learn and benefit. Accordingly, this helps to boost the image of the university. In fact, all the interviewees believe that the image of the University has improved partly due to its involvement in TM activities. They, nonetheless, also concur that much remains to be done. According to R24,
The university benefits in [the] sense that the public now views that it is getting closer to them. In the past, even for a local to just come and visit the university, it would feel like [an] impossibility; he would feel that he would be chased away … just coming to consult someone. These days, as a result of that emphasis on community outreach, the locals feel that they are closer to the university; they are more associated with the university than before. (Personal communication, March 28, 2012.) In addition to the enhancement of the public image of the university (Ajayi et al., 1996;
Modise & Mosweunyane, 2012), the TM enables the university to network with the external communities—on which it depends for support and legitimacy—and to access and mobilise resources. In terms of mobilisation, the interviewees stressed that when a university values and promotes the TM, it becomes relatively easier for that institution to mobilise resources, particularly finances, from different sources and activities. When a university makes conscious efforts to promote the TM, it sends a signal to the government, the private sector and its development partners that it is pursuing excellence and relevance.
This enables the university to mobilise complementary financial resources. R8, for instance, noted:
As long as you demonstrate that there is a conscious effort to do the Third Mission, then getting access to resources becomes very easy, because if somebody came here and you showed him what you are doing with the little resources, the kind of devices you are developing … they will be motivated to give you more resources. (Personal communication, March 20, 2012.)
The mobilisation of resources concerns not only the ability to attract external funding, but also, importantly, the knack to diversify the internal sources of revenue. An institution that values and promotes the TM is able to generate revenue from some of its paid-for TM activities. MUK, for instance, generates some, although not much, funding from consultancy, CE, library services, and entrepreneurial activities such as the incubation
80 Especially through the university-owned FTBIC.
centre. According to R19, “We [the university centre] use our expertise to provide a service, which people pay for, but because we are within the university, the university gets a percentage of that income, which we remit directly to the central administration” (personal communication, March 29, 2012). This source of revenue is not yet fully developed.
The TM also enables staff and students to access and utilise the teaching and learning resources that exist outside the confines of the university. Although this happens mostly at the individual level, at the institutional level, it can only happen when a university values the TM and supports TM activities, such as field attachment, and field-based learning and collaborative research, which recognise the importance of, and utilise, field-based knowledge and other resources in students’ learning. In such a case, university students and academic staff are encouraged and/or supported to visit, utilise, and learn from industrial, agricultural, and business facilities—laboratories, farms, and firms. In fact, getting an
“opportunity to access training facilities and resources that are not available at Makerere University” (MUK, 2011, p. 2) is one of the benefits that MUK envisages to derive from field attachment. Last, but equally important, is that because the TM is, and should be, integrated into teaching and research, participating in the TM has enabled the university to enhance the relevance of its research and curriculum to the needs of society (Ajayi et al., 1996). Activities, such as field attachment, field-based learning, collaborative research, and sharing of expertise, for example, permit the university to gain access to the knowledge that exists outside the university campus and, consequently, to embed societal needs and aspirations (current and future) in its curriculum and research agenda. Active involvement in TM activities, then, as R6 observed, is expected to increase the relevance of the university in two ways:
First, the research that we do in the university would be informed by the problems we face or get from the field. We would develop our research agenda based on the issues that have been expressed and maybe issues that we have experienced ourselves if we worked with the community. Second, it would improve the relevance of the research in terms of how that research can be useful to the people. (Personal communication, March 27, 2012.)
The above statement tallies with the policy expectations of the university regarding the potential benefits of the TM. For example, the field attachment policy of MUK states that field attachment would enable the university to “get an opportunity to appreciate client demands and the quality of graduates required to fulfill these demands [and that] as a result of the cooperation the potential for research will be enhanced and developed with the various partners” (MUK, 2011, p. 2). In addition, the university views an effective TM as (a) an interface between research and training that would make a university relevant to societal needs or national development and (b) the space for joint learning and change for the students, the academic staff, the university and the university’s partners (see http://
mak.ac.ug/ about/outreach).
Benefits to the academic staff
Although the members of the academic staff gain from the institutional benefits discussed above, they also derive personal benefit from participating in TM activities.
The benefits are of an academic, pecuniary, and non-pecuniary nature. In terms of academic benefits, the interview data reveal that participating in TM activities enhances the academics’ opportunities to interact with, share knowledge with, and learn from the external communities. The interviewees concurred that there is a great deal of indigenous knowledge on medicine, literature, history, and culture, among other disciplines, that the academics cannot access, document, and learn from unless they interact with the external communities. Interactions such as collaborative research, therefore, enable the academic staff to interact with the external communities, to connect theory and practice, to acquire new knowledge, and to boost the quality and relevance of their teaching and research—for instance, by relating their research to societal problems and incorporating field examples and case studies into their lectures. In this regard, R11 observed,
To members of staff, especially us who are in fields that you really consider being practical, if you do just teaching then maybe you are too theoretical and may be you don’t know the real thing in the field. However, when you are involved in these problems through outreach, you actually get to know the reality and then maybe also how to teach things, which can be applied in real practice. (Personal communication, April 5, 2012.)
Besides contributing to the knowledge base, and the teaching and research activities of the academic staff, the TM also contributes to the promotion process of the academic staff. As stipulated in the university’s policy on the appointment and promotion of the academic staff, MUK recognises the contributions of the academic staff towards ‘community service’
in the promotion process. Just as is the case with teaching and research performance, TM contributions are valued and considered in the process of promoting the academic staff to senior academic ranks: senior lecturer, associate professor, and professor. Therefore, although the interviewees concurred that contributions to the TM minimally enrich their academic promotion—one can still be promoted as long as one excels in research and teaching—they also confessed that they still include contributions to the TM on their curriculum vitae when seeking promotions. To stress the contribution of participating in TM activities to the promotion process, R7 noted,
I think I was very lucky because I jumped a step in the promotion ladder – I was an assistant lecturer and was made a senior lecturer and part of that was because of the things [TM activities] I had been doing. (Personal communication, March 27, 2012.)
The TM also benefits the academic staff financially in that those who participate in TM activities, particularly consultancy, CE, and the commercialisation of research results, earn
some income that supplements their university salaries. Whenever we offer consultancy services, R17 pointed out, “we get paid, when we go to train we get paid, when we sit on the boards we get allowances. They [the payments] are not really so significant but at least there are some financial benefits definitely” (personal communication, March 20). Therefore, although such earnings might not be substantial, they supplement their salaries, which, the interviewees noted, are inadequate. Apart from the financial rewards, the interviewees revealed that participating in TM activities also brings them satisfaction, especially when they contribute to society—that is, help to advance a cause or to make a positive impact in/
on people’s lives. According to R4,
There is something you gain from doing your job to ensure that you are passing on the knowledge to other people. … These courses really don’t bring in a lot of money; they are merely to meet the cost of managing them, but in terms of national development, they are important because they provide the basics [knowledge] that are required by our people. (Personal communication, April 3, 2012.)
Benefits to students
TM activities, particularly field attachment and field-based learning, offer students learning and career opportunities. First, because they bring students in contact with issues and developments outside the university in general and the lecture rooms in particular, they offer students opportunities for practical learning and subsequently enable students to widen their learning experiences. The interview data show that TM activities—particularly field attachment and field-based learning—help the students to put theory to practice, to gain context-specific experience and to appreciate classroom work more. R10, for example, pointed out that the involvement of students in TM activities enables the students to manage educational projects and assignments in the context of application to real-world problems—that is,
They [students] see what they are going to be involved in [after graduation], they learn to work as a team, they learn to deal with the communities … and they also see the actual conditions as they are. … They also get the opportunity to understand things better when they are practically engaged. (Personal communication, April 11, 2012.)
By bringing students closer to the external communities, TM activities—particularly field attachment—enable students to (a) understand workplace demands and challenges in their future professions, (b) meet, work with, and be supervised by, potential employers (MUK, 2011), (c) make career choices, (d) develop entrepreneurial skills and (e) create labour market connections that would help them after graduation. The interviewees observed that, at times, the students are recruited by the organisations where they carry out field attachment. Because of the interactions created by field attachment, R24 noted,
Students tend to market themselves. If there is an opportunity—for example, an NGO comes to an area and they want to establish a project—the locals usually recommend a student who did field attachment with them. Most students have benefited by getting employment, by getting connections. (Personal communication, March 28, 2012.)
Benefits to external communities
Because the TM activities involve interactions between universities and external communities, the TM benefits not only a university (including its academic staff and students) but also the external communities. First, not only does the TM enable the university, staff, and students to learn from the external communities, but TM activities, such as CE and consultancy, also enable the external communities to access, acquire, and utilise the knowledge, skills, and knowledge capabilities of the university. Through its outreach centres, the incubation centre, and other units that facilitate interactions between the university and the external communities, MUK provides skills development or retooling programmes that enable the participants to acquire new knowledge and skills, to create their own business, to enhance their business and agricultural productivity, and so forth. The TM also enables the external communities to contribute actively to the decision-making processes at the university, particularly through participation in curriculum development, curriculum reviews, and field attachment. Although this form of engagement has not developed fully, it is envisaged that when it is completely developed, it will enable the external communities to contribute meaningfully to decision-making and to the development of solutions to some of the societal problems.
In addition, by bringing students in contact with the external communities, TM activities offer the external communities accessibility to a pool of potential employees from which to choose, which ultimately reduces the cost of the recruitment and induction of new employees (MUK, 2011). In addition, since students undertaking field attachment are not paid, field attachment offers organisations and/or communities additional and free human resources, albeit for a short time.
Most of the benefits discussed above may be associated with field attachment because at the time of data collection, field attachment had recently been introduced as a university- wide practice (the first round was carried out in 2011) compulsory for all undergraduate students. The above discussion shows that when a university engages with its external communities and integrates the TM into its teaching and research activities, both the university and the external communities benefit. The benefits to the university, including its academic staff and students, as discussed above, include positive relations with the external communities, increased opportunities for students’ experiential learning, increased academic vitality and public relevance of research and teaching activities, and access to and mobilisation of resources. The benefits to the external communities include accessibility
to research outcomes that are socially robust, quick access to human and other knowledge resources, and the development of human and social capital (Modise & Mosweunyane, 2012).