The Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa (CARTA) held the seventh Faculty and Administrative Staff workshop (FAS) on July 17-19 at the University of Rwanda (UR) in Kigali, Rwanda. Over 120 participants from CARTA partner universities and research institutes attended. They included junior staff, senior staff, librarians, and deans of post graduate schools, finance officers, finance managers, registrars, Public relations and communication officers.

Professor Philip Cotton, Vice Chancellor of the University of Rwanda, graced the opening ceremony. He said managers and university administrators critical people who are involved in scouting for research funding opportunities, manage the budget and worked closely with academics.

CARTA Program Manager Prof Peter Ngure said this years’ FAS meeting was different compared to the previous years. In the last Partners and Funders meeting in Eldoret, Kenya the Board of Management was mandated to explore ways of decentralizing FAS, making the meeting more participatory, find ways to hold participants accountable to certain deliveries within the institutions after the three-day workshop.

The reorganization was prompted by the a number of issues such as slow mainstreaming of outcomes of FAS workshops within partner institutions, difficulty in holding participants accountable after the workshop, limited number of faculty and administrative staff reached at institutions and cumbersome administrative and logistical process for more than one hundred and twenty participants.

As a result, this years’ workshop program was restructured to be more participatory and interdisciplinary in order to explore collective meaning of challenges within and across institutions. It also included sharing of experience from faculty and invited expert guest.

Participants committed to undertake one project at individual and institutional level to help mitigate challenges faced in research and doctoral training. UR CARTA focal point, Dr Pierre Claver Rutayisire, urged the administrators and support staff of African institutions of higher learning to actively support research in their respective functions.