Second Meeting of The Regional Steering Committee for African Centres of Excellence held in Kampala, Uganda
The Regional Steering Committee for African Centres of Excellence (ACE II) held its second meeting on 27–28th July 2015 in Kampala, Uganda to consider the ACE II Protocol for Assessment of Proposals and Call for Proposals.
The two documents are paramount for the launch of the project and were approved by the Regional Steering Committee. The Committee resolved that the Call for Proposals be launched by 31st July 2015.
The Call for Proposal shall be posted on ACE II website (www.ace2.iucea.org) and IUCEA website (www.iucea.org), advertised in the East African newspaper and in local newspapers of the participating countries. Higher education institutions from the participating countries are invited to develop and submit proposals to the Regional Facilitation Unit (RFU) for selection as centres of excellence.
The ACE II project aims at promoting regional specialisation among participating universities within areas that address particular regional development challenges, and to strengthen the capacities of these universities to deliver high quality training and applied research in areas of priority to socio-economic development as identified by the participating countries.
The set priorities are Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM); agricultural sciences, health and medical sciences; Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) and quality education; and applied Statistics.
IUCEA was selected to be the Regional Facilitation Unit (RFU) for ACE II by a Regional Steering Committee (RSC) which sat in April 2015.
RSC is responsible for overseeing the implementation of the project / programme. As a Regional Facilitating Unit, IUCEA will specifically facilitate monitoring and evaluation, coordinate capacity building initiatives for the selected centres of excellence and share good practices across the participating countries.
The RFU will also be responsible for managing the selection and evaluation process of the project’s regional competition as well as other preparatory activities, such as communication and dissemination of the project.
Ten countries are participating in the project namely, Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe.