| OBJECTIVES |
| This project responds to a predisposition of UNILU to play the leading role in the development of the KCA in areas that constitute the vocation of this region (exploitation of mineral and forest resources for various purposes) and the strategic and thematic priorities identified within UNILU. Globally, it aims at enabling the UNILU staff (teaching, research and technical-administrative) to take up the challenge of improving the socio-ecological conditions of the populations living within the KCA. More specifically, the project aims to strengthen (1) administrative governance in its organizational and operational aspects of management, technical and administrative services; (2) academic governance by relying on academic succession, continuing staff training, evaluation, integration of ICTs and languages; (3) research governance with regard to the organizational aspects of the research support office (RSO) and libraries; (4) the visibility of UNILU in the region by improving the operational and organizational aspects of the University Press (PUL) and printing, the UNILU-society interface (USI), the UNILU website and the creation of a UNILU radio and television school (cf. synergy and complementarity with projects funded by ARES-CCD, VLIR-UOS, etc.); (5) the creation of an Environmental Observatory within which existing specialised research centres (i.e. toxicology centre, environmental laboratory, etc.) will be federated on the one hand and research units or research centres will be created on the other hand (Projects 1, 3, 4 and 5); (6) increase international visibility to attract new partners and new funding. Thus, in the medium term, the project aims to support the training unit for technical-administrative staff and to improve the operational and organisational aspects of the RSO, the USI, the university pedagogy unit, the Doctoral School, the computer resources service, the library and the quality assurance unit. Furthermore, this project envisages the creation of a computer centre and a centre for digitization of archives for better storage/processing of the large masses of data, to avoid the deterioration or accidental loss of the originals, thus facilitating access for users. Moreover, an Environmental Observatory will be created which will centralize knowledge and research in the environmental field in a mining context. Finally, a UNILU radio and television school will be created to ensure better popularization of good practices in the various fields for the benefit of local communities. Subsequently, through this project, the programme will support in the medium term the training of trainers or facilitators of the above-mentioned structures. In the long term, the technical and administrative staff (at the level of the central administration and UNILU faculties) will be trained to gain the necessary skills to fulfil their tasks and will thus contribute to improving the management of the university, the service to the faculties as well as the visibility and valorisation of the results obtained by the UNILU researchers. |
| CONTEXT |
| UNILU’s IUC programme includes the strengthening of academic capacity as one of the areas of internal change. These include the improvement of the existing libraries (through a subscription to scientific journals, PC equipment, internet connection for students and researchers from UNILU and the region), of the technical research services and of the administrative service as a whole, which constitute the pillars of the organization to conduct high-quality research that will feed quality teaching and provide adequate services to the community. With UNILU staff strengthened in research and communication capacities, it will be possible to build up a reliable research database which will enable effective advocacy with decision-makers and other stakeholders: enterprises, NGOs, local communities, etc. In order to overcome resistance (from local communities, companies or the public services), UNILU will regularly provide summaries / translations of its studies and surveys in French, English and local languages. It will then organize focus groups where all stakeholders will make their views heard, and resolutions will be documented and disseminated through ICTs (website, university radio) and other, more traditional means such as box of pictures and posters. This project is linked to the 5 thematic projects developed within this IUC programme. The training of laboratory staff will allow a better operationalisation of the research support structures created or strengthened thanks to the project. Thanks to a better operationalisation of the training unit, the administrative staff involved in project management (secretaries) will see their skills strengthened. The contact of teachers-researchers with mining operators coming mostly from English-speaking countries will be facilitated through the learning of (academic) English. The results obtained from the 5 thematic projects will be disseminated through the university radio and television created in this project and promoted via the UNILU-society interface. The continuous training to be developed by the doctoral school, as well as the improvement of library performance, will help to strengthen the skills of the doctoral students recruited. The support structures for the research carried out in the 5 academic projects will be strengthened in terms of equipment and sufficiently trained personnel (Figure 4). Figure 4. Overview of the synergy and complementarity of the transversal project and the 5 academic projects |
| STRATEGY OF THE PROJECT |
| Institutional capacity building will be done through a four-pronged strategy. Axis 1: Capacity building of staff (teachers, researchers, technical-administrative staff) will be done through training (seminars and workshops) dedicated to the staff of the central administration structures (directorate of academic affairs, finance and personnel, libraries, etc.) and faculties (administrative secretary, academic secretary, accountant, auditor, laboratory technicians, etc.) and the professionalization of the bachelor cycle. Prior to the training courses, a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) survey will be organized at the UNILU staff level. Following this survey, training themes will be proposed in order to address the technical/methodological weaknesses identified during the SWOT analysis and will be integrated into a training catalogue. IR1: The skills of the teaching, research and technical-administrative staff will be strengthened and integrated into the UNILU structures. Axis 2: Support in terms of equipment within the existing units (quality assurance unit, academic English laboratory, university pedagogy unit, computer resources service, training unit for technical and administrative staff, research support office, etc.). In addition, in order to ensure their better functioning through the densification of their activities, other complementary structures will be created, notably the Environmental Observatory, the computing centre for the management of data from different thematic projects via the central administration, the archive digitization centre to facilitate access to existing data relevant to researchers as well as the UNILU radio and television school for the popularization of the results obtained in the thematic projects. Both for existing structures and for structures to be created, staff will be trained in the use of the equipment. IR2: Research support structures will be created and/or improved in terms of operationalization. Axis 3: The trainers will be retrained to ensure the training of staff at both the central administration and UNILU structures. The trainers will be trained by staff from Flemish universities, locally and/or in Belgium. IR3: The trainers of trainers have benefited from the training and are transferring their knowledge to the UNILU staff. Axis 4: Valuing the results and improving strategies for their transfer to the different stakeholders by strengthening UNILU’s interaction with the world of work in the KCA region through the consolidation of existing partnerships and the signing of new ones. A framework for sharing experiences will be established and regular meetings will be organized. IR4: The results obtained will be valorized and transferred to the labour market of the KCA. Overall, this project, as others, will also take into account the gender factor in its strategy and will include a significant number of women in the academic, scientific, administrative and technical staff in order to improve the ratio of women better equipped and assuming more and more responsibilities within the UNILU. Women heads of UNILU departments should be trained to become trainers themselves in order to increase the proportion of women in UNILU’s decision-making bodies and thus achieve a better gender balance at all levels (operational, decision-making, etc.). |
| FINAL BENEFICIARIES |
| At UNILU level, the targets of this project are: (i) the administrative and technical staff of UNILU, who will benefit from significant support in capacity building through continuous training and the establishment of better adapted technical conditions, in particular the use of ICTs in the performance of their daily tasks; and (ii) academics, UNILU researchers and students who will be able to rely on the better-supplied documentary resources of libraries with quality staff, better equipped laboratories managed by qualified technicians, and more competent administrative staff to organize research and teaching activities. At the external level, the beneficiaries are: (i) public and private services whose staff can be directly associated with UNILU’s in strengthening managerial capacities, in particular through the use of ICTs; (ii) the KCA’s higher education and university establishments which use UNILU’s infrastructure, in particular libraries and laboratories, for their training and research needs at all levels. It should be noted in this respect that UNILU is, together with the University of Kinshasa and the University of Kisangani, one of the three public institutions authorised to organise doctoral training in the DRC; (iii) the population of the KCA as a whole, which will obtain quality services from UNILU thanks to its qualified staff, its better equipped and optimally functioning laboratories and research centres. |
