Homepage

When Asaf Adebua in 2017 started to study for his PhD at Gulu University 'The Contributions of Institutions of Higher Learning to Post-war Community Transformation: The Case of Gulu University in Gulu District', he was investigating the relevance of his university to the community it targets to transform, going by the university’s motto, For Community Transformation.

It was a life changing experience to replace the warm climate of Malaysia to the more cool Scandinavian environment. When the Malaysian engineer Dr. Kumeresan did his Ph.D in Denmark, he benefitted on many levels, both professionally and personally.

Walk into a local market in Uganda and you will be struck with a range of fresh fruits; mangoes, tomatoes, melons, pineapples, name it. They are arranged invitingly on the ground or on a stand to tickle your thirst and appetite. The seller is usually a woman.

Sulayman Mpisi Babiiha’s PhD experience represents the epitome of perseverance of an academic. His account is touching, but because he speaks with so much calmness, I can take it in with some ease. He has been pursuing his PhD certificate for ten years and he won’t give up the hope yet.

13 years ago, the armed conflict in Northern Uganda ended. Government forces fought the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels. Local and international groups have invested a lot of resources in the region in an attempt to return it to decency. Today, perhaps nothing worries them more than the children of the war and their offsprings, described as The Lost Generation.

A recent controversial resolution on fishing quota in Colombia, that permitted to catch sharks, have had a strong reaction in the scientific area. Three private universities in Bogota managed to make the government go over it again, after making a common call to include researchers and studies.

'When it comes to capacity building in higher education systems, it is much harder to show direct evidence of the development effect in society' says Niels Thygesen, Director of DUCED I&UA almost 20 years ago, 'the effect of the DUCED/LUCED programme was massive in the targeted countries; the initiatives implemented almost 20 years ago have rubbed off even to this day'.

Veronica Velasco’s movie 'Nuuk' (2019) has been described elsewhere as “The Filipino Take on a Nordic Noir Film”. To what extend this claim plays a role in choosing Nuuk for the Copenhagen Asian Film Festival's (CAFF) “Closing Gala Film” has not been expounded. However, a picture on Filipino immigrant diaspora in the Danish postcolonial region, is definitely a well-chosen theme to give special attention to.

Geoffrey Tabo Olok in 2016 enrolled at Aalborg University to study e-learning for his PhD. Olok and his supervisors now have their eyes on an ambitious plan to establish a centre of excellence in ICT research and learning not only for Gulu University but also to improve Africa’s relevance in that area.

A recent initiative of the first Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation in Colombia creates hope in the research-ambience in the country and expectations of stronger budgetary prioritizing of this central area for development in the country.