About us
The Irish African Parternship for Research Capacity Building (IAPRCB) is a network for information exchange and sharing of knowledge on ‘research in the service of development’.
Its activity focuses on four strands, all of which are relate to building sustainable research capacity in partnership with university institutions in sub-Saharan Africa:
- Research partnering on a North/South and South/South basis, with a longer term view to developing an Irish‐African network of excellence in international development research
- Individual capacity building through a graduate student mentoring network (‘Brain Retain”)
- Institutional capacity building through training initiatives such as regional ‘summer schools’
- Awareness of new approaches to Graduate Studies training provision, harnessing the opportunities presented by information technology and utilising the combined expertise of institutions of higher learning both in Ireland and in Africa.
The network is coordinated from an office within Dublin City University
History
The IAP network in its present form grew out of a project of the same name (the Irish‐African Partnership for Research Capacity Building) which was funded by Irish Aid between 2008 and 2011 and which operated under the aegis of Universities Ireland.
The project brought together in partnership all the universities on the island of Ireland (later joined by Dublin and Dundalk Institutes of Technology) and four universities in sub‐Saharan Africa (the University of Malawi; Universidad Eduardo Mondlane in Mozambique; the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania; and Makerere University in Uganda). Their shared objective was to develop a coordinated approach to Research Capacity Building (RCB) in higher education institutions, in order to make an effective contribution to institutional strengthening and ultimately to poverty reduction.