Institutional Mechanisms for Enhancing Production of Doctoral Research Outputs at Makerere University

In the contemporary knowledge society, research production is being re-purposed in terms of not just its academic value, but also its wider societal value. As such, doctoral research ought to be produced in the context of application. Therefore, universities have a responsibility to enhance the uptake and use of doctoral research outputs. This necessitates institutional mechanisms for enhancing the production of doctoral research outputs for uptake and use beyond the academia. We examined the institutional mechanisms for enhancing production of doctoral research outputs at Makerere University using the research knowledge infrastructure (RKI) framework as the analytical lens. This was in light of the dismal uptake and use of research produced at Makerere University by students and staff. We used qualitative single case study research design. We collected data through interviewing and review of documents. We interviewed 10 doctoral program coordinators, three managers of research and graduate training and 13 PhD students we selected purposively. We reviewed seven institutional documents pertaining graduate training at Makerere University: two plans, three policies, one framework and one guideline. We used thematic data analysis to make sense of the data. The findings revealed that due to policy-practice gaps and funding constraints, mechanisms to enhance doctoral research production to facilitate uptake and use of doctoral research outputs beyond the academia were not adequately integrated into doctoral research training. This was shown by the lack of mechanisms to enhance doctoral research commissioning and execution, and gaps in priority setting. Opportunities for productive interactions between doctoral researchers and potential users were missed. As such, doctoral research outputs largely remained within the scholarly community. We recommend that the university should establish interface structures and co-creation spaces to leverage doctoral research commissioning, execution and priority setting to facilitate the uptake and use of doctoral research outputs beyond the scientific community