BSU project empowers SUA and other researchers to use research findings to influence policy formulation in Tanzania

On March 15 and 16, 2022 in Morogoro, Tanzania, researchers and various stakeholders of the Building Stronger Universities (BSU) project from Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA) and Consortium of Danish Universities (CDU) including the University of Copenhagen, The Technical University of Denmark, Aarhus University and Aalborg University met in a two-day training workshop aimed at building capacity on the best way to utilize scientific results to persuade communities and policymakers to make policy changes in the country.

BSU II

Opening the Workshop, the Director of the Directorate of Postgraduate Studies, Research, Technology transfer and Consultancy at SUA Prof. Esron Karimuribo said researchers have often done a lot of researches but there have been challenges on how to present such findings to users.

He said the event was very important, as researchers would now know how they would present the results of their studies to the target audience and stakeholders including the policy makers.

Prof. Karimuribo said in the third day of the workshop they will meet with other stakeholders from the Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries, the Ministry of Agriculture, as well as National Research Institutions to discuss how to use this scientific advice to improve the lives of citizens especially farmers and pastoralists.

For his part, the coordinator of (BSU) project Prof. Anthony Sangeda said BSU has been implemented in three-phases and the project has been at SUA for about 10 years where the first phase was used to train 6 SUA staff to PhD level. 

He said in the second phase of the project they have successfully developed three curricula, one for Masters in Aquaculture and two for PhD Agroecology and PhD Agribusiness. All the three curricula are up and running with students. 

In the third phase, the project supported other 6 SUA staff in Masters and PhD studies. BSU continued to offer a number of generic courses on Research based training, Data handling and analysis, life cycle assessment, grant proposal writing, Scientific advice, Business management and other specific PhD courses to build institutional research capacity to SUA staff. 

The Building Stronger Universities (BSU) project is funded by the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) and is expected to be completed by December 2022.

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