The climax of the Joint Advanced Seminar (JAS) 4 is the conference in which CARTA fellows attending the JAS4 present key scholarly achievements out of their PhD work. The purpose of this conference is to; Showcase progress, achievements and innovations from CARTA PhD fellows, disseminate PhD research findings, provide mentorship and networking opportunities, and broaden and strengthen training and research. This year CARTA held its 8th annual conference in which 27 fellows presented abstracts from their PhD work. For the first time, the conference this year was held virtually due to travel restrictions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.
The key feature of this conference is that the organizing committee makes sure it mimics an international conference arrangement with a multidisciplinary audience made up of CARTA fellows from other cohorts, CARTA graduates, CARTA facilitators and other invited guests from the host university and other CARTA partner institutions. This arrangement gives fellows the confidence to present their scholarly work in subsequent conferences. The other feature is that a conference call is shared and fellows respond by submitting an abstract in the requested format and the conference organizing committee offers support to make sure the abstract book is produced and shared in the desired format. As a host institution, at Makerere University we are confident that this conference publicizes the rigor of the CARTA PhD fellowship as fellows combine skills acquired across the different JASes into a single dissemination package.
