Research cooperation with UEM, Moz, 2011- June 2017

i) Collaborative research and postgraduate training: The Program saw 59 new PhD holders as well as nine licenciate and 27 MSc graduates during 2011 - 2017. In terms of PhDs, this almost doubled Swedish funded graduates since the beginning of the collaboration in 1978. As the graduates are UEM staff obtaining PhDs in the disciplines in which they teach and supervise students, the Program contributed significantly to the competences of the academic staff of the university. UEM also provided a total of 480 students scholarships for studies at UEM over the period 2012 - 2016, with Swedish funding. An external evaluation by FCG SIPU International (Sida Decentralised Evaluations , 2017:9) found that the Program had reached 77% of its original target of enrolling 146 new students and that the completion time was on average 6.3 years for PhD and 3.4 years for MSc. This is longer than the original plan but not unusual. Moreover, the number of academic publications from UEM had increased, and the Program had significantly contributed to this growth. The quality of the research was overall good as reflected in types of journals and number of quotations. The number of publications in non-indexed journals were, however, high. ii) local postgraduate research training programs; Four MSc programs at UEM were developed, approved and launched during the agreement period. The MSc in Mineral Resource Management was prepared by the Department of Geology, Faculty of Science at UEM in collaboration with Luleå University of Technology. The MSc in Chemistry and Processing of Local Resources was prepared by the Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science at UEM also in collaboration with Luleå University of Technology. The MSc in Food Technology was prepared by the Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering at UEM in collaboration with Lund University and Chalmers University of Technology. Finally, the Msc in Wood Technology was prepared by Faculty of Agronomy and Forest Engineering/the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering/Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science in collaboration with Luleå University of Technology and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU). These new UEM MSc programs graduated 35 students before the end of the agreement period. The external evaluation found that the number of postgraduate programs at UEM increased from one PhD program in 2011 to eleven in 2015, and from eight MSc programs to 22 during the same time period. The program, hence, made progress toward agreed objective ii) . iii) improvement of research environment; However, once back, the evaluators found that there were limited opportunities for PhD graduates to conduct research due to heavy workloads, inadequate equipment and limited availability of funds. Of the 17 graduates who had received their PhD degrees by 2014, only six continued to publish academic articles two years after their graduation. This indicates challenges to program objective iii), but would benefit from a follow-up of the entire group of graduates. Importantly, the Embassy as well as the Swedish and South African collaborating universities were engaged in dialogue with UEM regarding the formulation of a new Vision and Mission for the university (approved in 2013) as well as the UEM Strategic Plan 2018-2028: Towards a Research University (approved 2017). The pre-studies for these documents identify a number of challenges for research at UEM where the experiences from the Program provided key insights. The Program also contributed towards most of the areas identified as objectives in the Strategic Plan. The Program was, hence, will placed to make progress towards objective iii) although a lot still needs to be done for UEM to achieve its goals. iv) strengthening research management capacity; Some improvements were made in relation to program management that may prove beneficial to the university as a whole; the creation of the Development Cooperation Cffice and the UEM Management Team for program implementation (hosted by the DCO), the Research Fund, and Postgraduate Fund managed by the Scientific Directorate. The UEM student scholarships mentioned under objective i) were provided via the latter. Still, the external evaluators concluded that the Program had contributed to strengthening of institutional capacity at UEM, but to relatively small and varying degrees. Specifically, the establishment of the Cooperation Office helped to strengthen Program coordination, but it appeared to be relatively isolated from the rest of UEMs management structures. v) library services. Finally, the evaluators found that support to the library was significant and useful (e-books, journals, books), even though the unit was still not sufficiently incorporated into the formal academic structures of UEM by the end of the agreement period. The evaluators concluded that there was still a way to go to create a culture for using the library among UEM staff.

The overall objective of the research cooperation program during the agreement period March 2011- June 2017, was to strengthen higher education and national research systems in Mozambique through support to research, postgraduate training and to the development of institutional capacity for research management at Universidade Eduardo Mondlane (UEM). The support focused on: i) collaborative research and postgraduate training; ii) local postgraduate research training programs; iii) improvement of research environment; iv) strengthening research management capacity; v) library services.