Message from the Vice President for Research and Community Engagement

Bahir Dar University has a vision of becoming one of the premier research universities in Africa. To achieve this a series of Five-Year Strategic Plans were prepared. Now a third strategic plan (2020 –2025) is under development in a way that contributes for the Growth and Transformation Plans (GTP) of the nation.

At higher education, emphasis has been given for research that focuses on solving the nation’s problems and transfer of appropriate technologies for various applications. Researchers are conducted based on the community needs in which thematic areas for research and community services are identified at university and academic units level of the university. Maximum effort is made to ensure their relevance to the societal needs.

Research at BDU is conducted through three ways:

  • By research centers - which are established based on the university's potential, country demand and geographical advantages
    By research groups – which are established at each academic unit targeted for focused research areas at institute/college/faculty/school levels with future potential of being upgraded to research centers and led by senior professors of the discipline
  • By graduate programs – BDU has set an agenda to increase the number of graduate programs radically so that they will be centers of innovation.
     

Community services are rendered in two ways: Services specific to each academic unit are rendered at the academic level whereas those interdisciplinary programs are addressed at the university level whereby different academic units join hands to address the issue based on the thematic areas identified.

Being a public university, BDU is committed to serve the community in two ways:

  • Being located at Bahir Dar with campuses at all exit routes of Bahir Dar City, we are committed to make Bahir Dar a university city. To achieve this, the University's academic units and research centers work closely with all kebele administrations in the city, identifying priority areas for collaboration and leveraging the University's diverse academic expertise to address community needs.
  • We have rural community service sites, such as Kollella Village, 45 km southwest of Bahir Dar city where research outputs are transferred into practice to transform the village into a model for others. The village is developed by the community themselves with the knowledge and technology support from the university.
  • We have also Birr-Adama watershed management community site where all the technologies and innovations can be forwarded to the community.
  • Parallel to the urban and rural models mentioned, there are various supports to the community from different organs of the university.
  • All community service sites serve not only as centers for community engagement but also as research and teaching–learning practice sites for our researchers, faculty members, and students.

The Vice President for Research and Community Engagement is responsible to:

  • Administer/manage financial matters of research projects funded and executed by Institutes/Centers/units
  • Work in cooperation with the researchers, academic staff, and relevant Heads of programs to develop and maintain optimum conditions Research and Community engagement performance at the highest possible levels
  • Collect research and community service performance reports from various units
  • Design and maintain research and community service databases.
  • Design and maintain the research and community service schedules of different units;
  • Ensure research issues emanated from the community (University and local) problems and the outcome is sustained by the community;
  • Ensure programs are more research focused with thematic areas emanated from the development goals of the country and teaching and community activity benefits from the research outcome;
  • Identify capacity building requirements for research and community engagement process;
  • Plan and prepare budget requirements for research and community engagement undertakings.
    Initiate and support the establishment of Journals;
  • Supervise the day-to-day activities of research teams, staff and has overall financial responsibility for the assigned budget;
  • Keep record of all value adding research and community service activities;
  • Organize and manage research activities
  • Organize annual work plan for research and community engagement and make it available in the university's website and other pertinent media outlets;
  • Organize seminars, conferences and workshops and encourage academics to take part in research and community engagement;
  • Solicit and support in searching funding sources for research and community service process.

 

Dear visitors, the Research Community Engagement Vice President office of Bahir Dar University welcomes your reflections/opinions about the activities we are carrying out so that you can be part of the transformation. We hope you will get full information about BDU by browsing its website in short time scan.

We thank you so much for visiting our site and your contribution in the BDU transformation.

                                                      Enyew Adgo (Prof.)

            Vice President for Research and Community Engagement, Bahir Dar University

                                                       Phone: +251 58 320 6068

                                                       Email: enyewadgo@gmail.com