Research: The heart of Bahir Dar University
By: Dr. Melaku Wale(Senior Researcher, BDU Research and Community Services Vice President Office)
BDU: Bahir Dar University’s Research and Community Services Office operates three most important functions of the University: Research, community service and technology transfer. This article deals with the research wing of the office.
Bahir Dar University envisions to become one of the top 10 research Universities in Africa. It is deeply committed to be really a research University. The very first measure it took was strengthening its research capability through a separate office headed by a Vice President for Research and Community Services. Under it are one senior expert at the main office and one coordinator assigned at each College, Faculty or Institute/School (making the total 11).
The Research and Community Services was restructured in 2003 EC. Ever since, it has steadily advanced in the areas of research, community services and technology transfer.
As to the research wing, the University chose five major themes of research in 2003 EC including research on water, biotechnology, pedagogical sciences, textile garment and fashion design and renewable energy. At present, the first four are operational at various degrees of intensity, while the last one is just starting.
Some of the Academic Units have identified research thematic areas thereby enabling themselves where to focus their research efforts.
At the moment, overall, around 131 new research projects are being carried out in various fields of study. Some 110 of them are being carried out by staff from various academic units, 10 by the University’s Water Research Institute, 7 by the Biotechnology Research Center, and 4 by the Pedagogical Sciences Research Center. The Institute and the Centers are organs of the Research and Community Services.
The various Academic Units conducting research include the College of Science, Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Social Science, Humanities, Education and Behavioral Sciences, Business and Economics, Land Administration, and Law.
The newly started research projects, excluding the ones that were started last year (i.e., 2003 EC), are clustered based on similarity in their field of study. In each cluster, the number of research proposals range from one to over 10.
Half the number of the current research projects has been started the year before and will soon be completed. Final scientific reports will be made available in due course. The currently ongoing research activities include the following. The numbers at the end of the particular theme indicate the number of research projects under it.
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Tuberculosis-2 |
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Food security-2 |
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Traditional medicine-1 |
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Human Nutrition-2 |
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Safety of health workers-1 |
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Food technology-1 |
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Pathology-1 |
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Ophthalmology-1 |
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Arts and literature-7 |
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Maternal care-3 |
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Culture-3 |
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Antibiotics-1 |
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Media-3 |
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Breast cancer-1 |
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Tourism-1 |
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Cervical cancer-1 |
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Contraceptives-1 |
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Education-2 |
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Detistry-1 |
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Language-16 |
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Hygiene-2 |
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Pedagogy-6 |
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Hepatitis B-1 |
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HIV/AIDS-5 |
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Ethnobotany-1 |
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Reproductive health-2 |
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Ethnography-1 |
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Irrigation-1 |
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Fish biology and ecology-3 |
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Soil chemistry-1 |
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Insect ecology-1 |
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Water harvesting-1 |
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Lake ecology-2 |
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Beef cattle-1 |
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Veterinary -4 |
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