The Great ReSearch, the essay writing competition sponsored by The EastAfrican, the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) and the VVOB, had as its theme "Improving the quality of scientific research in East and Central Africa," and was inspired by the conviction that without good-quality research, there can be no meaningful development, and Africa will remain condemned to a future of indigence and handouts.

 The competition was announced three times in The EastAfrican. The announcement was also sent around as an e-mail to several hundreds of researchers in the region. The judges – Prof Judi Wakhungu, Executive Director of ACTS (African Centre for Technology Studies) and Ric Coe, Head of Research Support Unit of ICRAF – have now announced the three winning teams (see advert on this page). They were given a choice of two topics: "How can we improve research quality in our institute," or "Describe an effective research project in which you participated that had a quantifiable impact in its field and analyse the reasons for its success."

The winners – Christian Thine, University of Nairobi and George Okwach, Kenya Agricultural Research Institute; Hector Mongi and Atugonza Bilaro, agricultural research officers at the Tumbi Agricultural Research Institute, Crops Research Programme, Tabora, Tanzania; and Shem Maina Kanyanjua and George Oduor Ayago of the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) along with with Joseph K. Keter of University of Nairobi and Joseph O. Okaalebo of Moi University – will receive gifts of statistical software and valuable research materials, and their winning essays will be published in abridged form in The EastAfrican in coming weeks.

Talking to The EastAfrican, Wim Buysse, a VVOB training associate with the World Agroforestry Centre and administrator of the competion, said, "The website with the rules and regulations was visited 221 times between December 9, 2004 and February 28 this year. We only could see the IP addresses of users who were visiting the website. This means that if the same IP address is visiting the site several times, we don’t know if it is the same person or if these are different persons from the same institute visiting the website. In short: several hundreds of people visited the website."

He continued, "A total of 14 essays were submitted by a total of 39 entrants. The submissions came from four different countries: Tanzania, Uganda, DRC and Kenya. Ten essays were submitted in English, two in French."

"Again, 10 essays were written by researchers working in institutes dealing with natural resources management (forestry two, agriculture eight). Four essays were written by people from other disciplines: journalism, science and technology, medicine and law. Lastly, no less than 10 of the 14 essays were submitted on the day of the deadline!"

He concluded by asking: "Is this a success? Well, it was not a big response, but it was the first time; moreover it was a highly specialised competition, the prizes weren’t grand, and you had to put in quite a lot of effort in terms of both thinking and writing. What’s more, it was announced just before the Christmas holiday."

Commenting on the contents of the essays, the judges said while there were a number of positive and encouraging aspects of the entries and their content, a wide range of problems with research systems were identified. Among those that were convincing, and are supported by experience, were:

*Managerial problems. Planning, financial and human resource management were all mentioned. An insider in almost any organisation is likely to see ways in which management could be improved, but these insights should not be dismissed as grudges.

Funding and investment were frequently cited as constraints to effective research. There is much discussion of who should pay for research, and the appropriate level of investment. One of the difficulties is the uncertainly of the returns and the time until they are realised.

*The style of effective research. It should be participatory (stakeholders involved in all phases of design, implementation and evaluation) and multidisciplinary (real problems are complex and require understanding from many different perspectives).

*Delivering results. It takes planned effort to get the results of research to the people who can benefit from it. Research results that only reside in a library will not make a difference.

The essayists also pointed out some areas that certainly are problems but are hard to get a handle on. These included:

*Language. English is nowadays the de facto language of research. But this can exclude people from research, and make research seem alien. What are the possibilities for research being conducted in and communicated in local languages?

*Reading. One writer explained the lack of a reading culture, and how important this is if researchers are to be creative. Access to literature is a constraint in some places, but the problem is deeper than that.

*Incorporating research results into projects. Some projects are still based on outmoded visions while incorporating more recent research results could lead to better formulated projects.

The range of examples of research leading to impact was also interesting. Some lessons:

*The level of technology used in the research does not determine if it will lead to impact. Effective research may use cutting-edge technology, but well done investigations needing nothing more than some clay and a hole in the ground can give important results.

*A common feature is having a clear understanding of the problem.

*Follow through is also necessary.

However, there were also a number of worrying trends revealed in the entries, that may reflect some of the problems with getting quality research done.

The authors lucidly described problems, but many of these are things that need action by individuals. For example, government investment in research will continue to be debated. But in the meantime, there are hundreds of sources of funds for individual researchers to tap into and get on with something useful. Many scientists in the region are very successful at this. What is it that stops more from doing this?
 
 

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