SN 4 EP 7: Strengthening Research Support Services Across East Africa with Prof. Edwinus Lyaya (EARIMA)

In this episode, we dive into the “hidden” profession that serves as the backbone of African science: Research and Innovation Management. We are joined by Prof. Edwinus Lyaya, an Associate Professor of African Archaeology at the University of Dar es Salaam and the longest serving administrator of the Eastern Africa Research and Innovation Management Association (EARIMA). Prof. Lyaya shares the remarkable 10-year journey of EARIMA, from its 2013 origins as a volunteer-led project offshoot to its current status as a legally registered regional powerhouse representing eight countries.

Here are the key things to look out for:
The Transition from Academic to Administrator: How Prof. Lyaya balanced his PhD completion with the sudden appointment to lead a fledgling association in a profession he initially found “strange”.

The Evolution of Membership: The shift from a small group of five universities to a diverse network of 200+ members, including hospitals, research institutes, and industry partners.

The “Impact” Gap: A critical discussion on how researchers struggle to create societal impact when funding and proposals do not explicitly include or fund “impact creation” as an objective.

The Vision for Regional Standards: Prof. Lyaya’s call for a full-time administrator and the development of “EARIMA standards” to unify research management practices across the eight countries in the East African region.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Intro:
Welcome to Mazumgumzo – African scholarly conversations, a podcast that highlights the perspectives of various stakeholders in academia and research fields across Africa through open dialogue on mazungumzo on scholarly communication in Africa.

Joy Owango:
Welcome to Mazungumzo African scholarly conversations, where we are joined by an expansive list of African policy makers, science communication and scholarly communication specialists, innovators and tertiary institution leads who contribute to this realm of scholarly and science communication. I’m your host. Joy Owango, the Executive Director of the training center in communication, TCC Africa, a capacity building trust based at the University of Nairobi, Chiromo campus.
In today’s episode, we are turning our attention to research and innovation management, and in particular, to the East African Research and Innovation Management Association, or popularly known as EARIMA. Since its founding, EARIMA has worked to strengthen the professionalization of research support services across East Africa, creating a space for knowledge exchange advocacy and capacity development among research managers and administrators. To help us explore this, we are joined by someone who has been central to EARIMA story from the very beginning, Prof. Edwinus Lyaya. Professor Lyaya is an associate professor of African archeology and cultural heritage conservation. He has led the role of Secretary General and is the longest serving administrator of EARIMA, which he legally registered in 2015 after entering its leadership in 2013. Over the years, he has gained extensive experience in research and innovation management across Africa and globally, and brings a unique blend of academic expertise and institutional leadership to our conversation today, a warm welcome to the program. Professor Edwinas.

Prof. Edwinus Lyaya:
Thank you very much.

Joy Owango:
Karibu, Sana. And as we begin, I need you to take me through what your journey has been, through academia and research and what keeps you grounded in in your work.

Prof. Edwinus Lyaya:
Okay, so when I just completed my studies in London, completed my PhD studies in London in 2013

When I reported it to work, I found I was appointed to become the first administrator coordinator by then of EARIMA, and it was that time when the Remif4s project, which actually was a project in which the University of Dar es Salaam and other research institutions were part of this project, had ended, and there’s an offshoot of the Rim4s project was EARIMA. So having just, you know, reported back to work, there was no one to coordinate this association, this EARIMA, and so I was appointed, and I was wondering, what is this EARIMA? You know having completed my research, my PhD research, I really, I mean, it got my interest to understand, what do we mean by, you know, research management, research and innovation, right? Yeah. So I jumped in and I started learning new things, because research and innovation management is completely like a new, it was a completely new profession to me, and I wondered, why was that not part of my training? My PHD training, or even area studies, right? So I mean, it was now my duty to balance the two. Keep on, you know my career, doing my academics, of course, but also trying to learn new things about research and innovation and management, and it was very interesting. So it has been all the same. I mean, all the same from 2013 up to date, trying to balance the two, doing my academics, you know, for the sake of academics, but also to see how EARIMA can support the researchers. And there have been difficulties here and there, but research and innovation management is an important tool to research, particularly when we aim at making research that has got impact, to the society, to the countries.

Joy Owango:
So you started this in 2013 and you’ve been at the helm of EARIMA for over a decade. And how has the change? How has the organization changed since its early days? And what difference do you think it’s making for research institutions across East Africa? And as you’re thinking through that, I’d like, I’m also curious to understand how your relationship is with your sister organizations, WARIMA and SARIMA. WARIMA being the West African Research Information Management Association and SARIMA being the Southern African Research Information Management Association.

Prof. Edwinus Lyaya:
So as I tried to say that when I got into EARIMA in 2013 it was at the end of the room for a project. And when it is the end, that also has got an implication, financial implication, that there was no any funds. There were no funds for running EARIMA. Then I realized that in 2014 actually, that we should have, we shouldn’t let EARIMA die because of the end of the Rim4s project. So they were also other growing interest from different members in eastern region. We conducted a consultative meeting in Arusha I remember, in 2014 and then we got EARIMA registered, as you said in 2015. From that time, I think were able to do some annual conferences, starting in Tanzania, two of them, no, starting with Uganda, if I remember correctly. We went back to Tanzania to conferences, annual conferences, and then we, of course, we went to Nairobi in 2015, and now that was before Corona, because that was a physical conference. Then Corona came in, you know, the pandemic, and then last year, we resumed these physical conferences, that was in transit in Zanzibar, and this time we are in Entebbe in Uganda. If you look at the this history of EARIMA, EARIMA has changed in many ways, in terms of, you know, having a steering committee, because we started with an interim committee. So in terms of leadership now we have a full fledged leadership for EARIMA in all the portfolios, from the president all the way to the Vice President and the Secretary General, which is the position that I’m serving? We have a problem with the coordinator, what to say the administrator, because, given the geographical diversity of our eastern region, these eight countries,

the coordination activities should be done by administrator. We don’t have a full time administrator who could actually be running all these activities on daily basis. Currently, I’m serving, I’m doing it two as the Secretary General, but also doing the administrator’s role, which is very good. At the beginning, it was very possible for me, very easy, because I was too busy to be honest, but you know what it means to be a senior lecturer, professor of a university, you get a lot of responsibilities. So yes, we have been growing up in terms of leadership, however, I think that we should probably get light proposals, and get funding for a paid up and full time administrator for further growth of EARIMA in terms of, ofcourse leadership, but in terms of legislation, in the beginning, we were not registered, we were not a legal entity, we were not a legal society. After 2015 we got legal registers in Tanzania, and according to the laws of Tanzania, to me, I think that was a milestone for EARIMA, and thanks to many people who were involved to this end. We keep renewing our registration yearly, and particularly after the pandemic, we want to make sure, and we are making sure that we abide through the rules and laws of Tanzania to make EARIMA alive in terms of legislation.The other aspect of growth that I see EARIMA has changed is in terms of membership. We started with five universities, these were the first five universities. I can even mention them, but, the membership was actually too much, focusing on universities, as we talk now, we have members who are not necessarily universities, tuitions or institutes, which I see is a very good point of growth, because we have universities yes, but we have research institution, we have industries, and then we have other institutions, organizations that associated with research and innovation, and we work with all those people and those institutions, which is very good, because research is not entirely for universities alone. It cuts across other sectors and industries. In terms of the number, the number has grown up, obviously, but also the individuals. We have very few paid up members at the beginning, and it came with time. If my records are very correct, we hit I think 200 members, individual members. Now, if you compare to a 19 members association to 200 that is growth, and we continue getting new members. There are challenges in terms of membership. People who be coming to join EARIMA and pay up, they pay payable fees. The problem is, not sure the members actually renew the annual subscriptions so we keep reminding them, sending them letters and emails and all that, to ensure that they renew their membership. Now our relationship, if I get to your second question, was about our relationship with the EARIMA assist organizations in Africa? We particularly with SARIMA, we working very closely. SARIMA, I would say that is the first Rima in Africa, and it has got more experience than what we do. We have been exchanging, you know, inviting into conferences, getting support here and there, but also with WARIMA, with their conferences, they’ve been to our conferences,we have been also doing a lot of knowledge exchange and SARIMA particularly, has been very supportive to see us growing up after them and there is sometimes also where we support some of our members to go to their conferences. We’ve been supported this year, that we got registered with INEOS. I think SARIMA played a very big role to that end. I’m very happy and I can tell you that SARIMA and WARIMA and other Rimas outside, inside, African outside. We are working with them very closely, but I think it will be more fruitful if we had full time and paid up but it was better, because I am increasingly becoming very very big.

Joy Owango:
Thats understandable but you see it’s the work that you’ve been doing over the last 10 years is recognized because now East Africa has a regional research information management association. You managed to bring up members building it from 90 to 200 and you have diverse members, you know, other than now universities, now you have research institutions, hospitals. That is, such a big development. So I think it also shows a big development in East Africa on our conversations regarding research management, and this has been instrumental to that.

Prof. Edwinus Lyaya:
I should have said that when we started EARIMA an office, like the headquarters office, I worked on that, and we were very lucky that we signed up the memorandum with the University of Dar es Salaam, with the Vice Chancellor, and we were given a room which is an office where the headquarters are, and that cannot be changed, whether this current VC retires or not. We have a working office, a working place where all the files and all the information all the visitors, when they come to EARIMA they can visit the office, which is located in the heritage building the College of Humanities. Which is, I think, one of good things that we have done for EARIMA.

Joy Owango:
Physical presence also is important. A physical presence is also very important for such an association. So it cannot be taken lightly, how far you’ve gone to where you’ve reached right now, EARIMA is increasingly being recognized as a key player on the continent when it comes to research information management, and with the representation of Eastern Africa, it also shows East Africa’s contribution to Research Information Management, because for the longest time, it was always SARIMA. We have seen WARIMA trying to come up, but there’s a lot of consistency with what is happening with EARIMA. So that is not taken lightly. That takes me to the third question, how would you describe the state of Research and Innovation Management in East Africa when EARIMA began, and how has it grown or shifted since then?

Prof. Edwinus Lyaya:
I think I can just quickly say that when we started, I could see Research and Innovation Management as something very new to some member institutions, organizations. It was the kind of, I wouldn’t say strange thing, but whenever we try to talk while starting from University of this time, if I can take that as an example, people are like, Who are these research administrators in research? We are the people. We are the researchers. We know everything. So we kept trying to educate them. I mean, to tell them that you know research administrators and research managers, innovators and all that, they support the research office, particularly. They are there to help, to support the researchers so that well, to save time, even resources and but also to ensure that what they do, actually, creates impact to the society, to the public. It’s not only doing research for the sake of research, which is purely academia, but if Research Administration or management comes in, there are a lot of benefits that the researcher gets, but also the research institutions themselves, in terms of compliance, for instance, in terms of research standards and ethics across the region, those kind of things. So at the beginning it was a bit difficult for some academics, some researchers, to buy in this idea of being supported, or even being told what to do about their research projects. EARIMA has helped a lot of researchers, innovators, to see the benefits, to see the importance of research offices in universities, in research and innovation institutions. They are key. It is the profession of its own kind that actually helps these people to create more impact and abide, comply to the funder’s guidelines and all that.

Joy Owango:
You know what you’re saying is so true because with our latest open infrastructure solution, HospitiumRIS, we realized that hospitals are a bedrock of data, doing a lot of clinical work, and that can be done, it can be flipped into research, and also the fact that hospitals are working closely with universities to conduct research. So they are just simply relying on the human capital of the hospital of the universities to conduct research, but then the environment was not conducive to conduct research. So what this solution is coming up with effective research management systems such that you create a conducive environment to conduct research. And if you had this discussion 10 years ago, even when you started EARIMA, I think the part where researchers were fighting is because they did not see the element of creating conducive environments to conduct research. They were just looking at just conducting research, and what research management has done over the years is help create conducive environments to conduct research, to aid in building collaborations at the end of the day. So I think EARIMA has helped create that awareness so much in East Africa, by being an active contributor to that conversation.

Joy Owango:
And then it leads me to the next question, and that is, over the years, EARIMA membership has grown to include a wide range of institutions and professionals. What patterns or needs have stood out to you among members, and how has EARIMA responded to those?

Prof. Edwinus Lyaya:
I think it is one, one of the things that I’ve tried to say when it comes to membership, there is a trend of getting new members every time, every year, but the trend has been that, there are people I have personally discovered that they have a certain condition from somewhere where they are applying for funding or for something, related to research and innovation, and they are told, are you a member of any Rima? We’ve been receiving those type of membership. So these are the people who just join up EARIMA and pay the fees for the first year, maybe in the second year. But when it comes to the annual subscription, they don’t buy in very quickly. For the same reason that maybe that project or the application is gone, or something like that. As a result, we get new members, but the members, they pay the one off payment, you know, the one off fee, but when it comes to the renewal of membership, which is done yearly, we see these problems. So what we doing? We keep telling them that as researchers and innovators, they have to keep being members of EARIMA because there are more benefits that they get when they are members and when they’re not members, they may not get them. So it’s more than, you know, them getting applying or getting funding. But there are other things, it means we do more than that. So there’s a problem which will be, I’ve already said that we, at the beginning, we been having these, mainstream universities institutions, but now have a very diverse, you know, type of organization, or institutional membership, which is very good. So the thing is that the number, both sides, individual and institutional membership, is increasing yearly. We have noticed what I say, and we don’t just sit down. We keep reminding them, telling them that please, renew your membership. And then, as I say, the joy is that if we had someone like, full time payable administrator,it will be easier to manage this.

Joy Owango:
So that is more, yes you have increased membership, but just the challenge of maintaining them and the need to have internal proper internal support so that these follow ups can be done more regularly. With time, without being a challenge. I’m sure you’ve also started observing some new challenges from research managers, because, you’re having conversations with them across the region. So what are the most pressing challenges, these research managers are telling you they face today?

Prof. Edwinus Lyaya:
So maybe I would talk of maybe one or two, for the sake of time. So one of the challenges that we face, we get a lot of opportunities from cyst organizations, the rivers and outside Africa as well. Where they ask, can you nominate one or two members to participate in a training workshop, or any activity? But we want someone who is already recognized as a research manager or research administrator, like with certificates, with this IPRC thing. So that is one of the challenges that we facing currently. People are really anxious. They really want to become recognized, professional recognition for all administrators but EARIMA doesn’t do that at the moment. We do work with SARIMA, and it is the process. And so that is one of the challenge. We should be resolving in the near future to find a better way of simplifying a process not simplifying, supporting our people, encouraging our members to become professionally recognized by an organization like SARIMA and others. To me, I see that as a challenge, because you invite someone, you tell them, please come and they’ll become a research manager. Now, what can I present to my research organization? Because I want to be recognized professionally as a research manager or administrator or innovator manager. Do you have any certificate of such? And then it will be like, ah, we have certificate of attendance. Blah, blah. So to me, is a good thing that they want this, but EARIMA cannot offer it at the moment, and we’re doing our best to ensure that we connect them with SARIMA. There will be people who are missing these opportunities, the ones that which we receive because they have not been professionally organized.

Joy Owango:
That’s what I’m saying, but at least the fact that you are in partnership with SARIMA some of these challenges can be mitigated by getting these certifications.

Prof. Edwinus Lyaya:
The other challenge, this is very small, maybe I wouldn’t say is a small challenge, but it is a gap. And I know Joy, you can actually make up, like a forum or workshop or something, to discuss about it. Last year, when we had the EARIMA conference in Zanzibar, there was a group of members who were, because one of the themes was talking about the impact, you know, research impact, and came a question that, how can I create impact to the society? How? Because, in order to create impact to the society, this has to come from the proposal. These guys were actually arguing that, when you write a research proposal, you don’t include, one of your specific objectives isn’t impact creation, impact making to society, and your funder actually doesn’t fund you creating impact, they say you have research, you write your report, you’re done. But if it would have gone further to the making of impact, and the suggestion was the funders, you know, because they normally give rules and guidelines, whatever, whatever you call it.They should include that as one of the objectives of their funding, that your research should create impact. And we find that aspect of your research creating impact, like, if you want to go back to the society doing research, you keep your books and your reports in shelves, but you don’t go back to the site and tell them this is where I discovered. This is risk, how would you go back to the site if there is no funding? You see what I mean. There is a gap between the founder and the researcher, when it comes to research impact creation to some of the fields in innovation and research. And I think that is the topic to discuss even further.

Joy Owango:
Yeah and that is something where the stakeholders, who are members, can contribute to finding solutions. Because when you talk about impact on research, it’s quite variant. It’s impact is measured in different ways. So we cannot have a impact measured through an agenda set by a funder. It needs to be institutionalized on, within organizations whereby, when you’re conducting research, your objective is for impact, whether it is going to be at a basic science or an applied science level, you need to look at impact. And then, how do you measure impact? People measure impact citations. People also measure impact with societal influence. There is so many ways to look at it, and it needs to be discussed by various stakeholders who are members, to define what they mean by impact and how they intend to institutionalize it and provide support for it. Could you share with us a few examples of how EARIMA is currently supporting its members, whether it’s through partnerships you’ve shared with us what you’re doing with SARIMA, advocacy or professional development?

Prof. Edwinus Lyaya:
The members of EARIMA get some benefit, which is an attraction to membership. What we’re doing to support our members is getting some to training in opportunities in in Africa. We had people who were actually sent to the United States for research innovation and training, over the five years, and the members also benefit when it comes to the conferences. These annual conferences, and they get, of course, you know, supporting members also, planning is important, you know, about things. We also support members by, letting them know of opportunities, funding opportunities, training opportunities, because researchers, one of the problem of researchers, I would think, is funding. So whenever we get funding opportunities, even training opportunities, we share with them. We share to them everything that we get, and some have been very lucky to obtain, to get the funding opportunities that we circulate to them. We also support our members to annual conferences. Even this year, we are supporting some two members to go to SARIMA conference and WARIMA, which is also a way of motivation to our to our members, and then we give them opportunity, whenever we have a training workshop, we invite people from different countries. We just don’t say this will be done by the steering committee. No, we get people from Uganda, we get people from Kenya, and other countries to go and share the experience in terms of research management and innovation management. There are benefits, we have those kind of benefits. We help our members. Also we support them, but also these people who want to, actually, there are many. There are a couple, not a couple. There are several members who are already on the professional recognition training course because it’s their first time, and Stella has been very supportive. Stella from Uganda, she’s been very supportive on that. I also get time to spot them so that they don’t, you know, drop the recommended training and we want to ensure that we support our members in various ways to defend.

Joy Owango:
So from what you’ve told me, EARIMA is pretty much headed by volunteers, and these are volunteers who are really committed to research management in the region. You being one of them. And it is actually an amazing journey to see that it has come this far through the community support in making it relevant to the region and supporting members in the region. So this is a perfect association that has community support, has committee engagement, and has a lot of volunteering commitment from members, and that is something you don’t see so much happening these days. So this is all about passion for the vision and research management in making sure that we have an association that is going to be sustainable in the future. And this leads to my last question, when you look ahead, what is your vision for the future of research management in East Africa, and what role do you see EARIMA Playing in making that vision a reality?

Prof. Edwinus Lyaya:
I think we as an association, we have the objectives. We’ve done what we have done in terms of trying to strengthen research innovation management and capacities in the region. But in terms of the future I see, I would be very happy to see that EARIMA is even more advancing in terms of research management, in terms of innovation management, in terms particularly, you know, trying to bring developing standards for the region. As we speak, different countries, or even small regions within these bigger region, they have their own kind of standards related to research management and association. I would be very happy, whoever is coming up and picking up EARIMA leadership to see, to ensure that we aim at getting the EARIMA standards, where we can. We can let members, whether the individual institutions, agree and sign that this is the East African standards, to do this and this, I know that will take time, and we may not necessarily get like a one size fits all, but at least that we cover most of the basic important things for our region. Just to strengthen my point of leadership, what EARIMA needs, I think, if you ask me, Joy, EARIMA needs a full time administrator, a full time person or administrator, or coordinator, whatever we call that, who will be able to do these daily activities for EARIMA, sending information, communicating to members, like individual members the institution, reminding them and sharing all the things. Because, as it is now, yes we are working, some of us on volunteer basis, but we have an office, but we don’t have a person that stays in office, just running a rim activities. Before Corona pandemic, I was working with this lady again, Lucy. We were working to ensure that we get funding for the administrator, because once we have a full time and full paid up administrator, I think EARIMA will make very quick steps towards standardizing, getting the standards for research innovation management in a region. To me as stepping down Secretary General, I see that is what worries me. I’ll be very happy to mentor whoever comes for a year or two on a volunteering basis, but EARIMA needs an administrator. As an associate professor of a university, and with other responsibilities, I mean, but if we get someone who is like committed, that is their job. Like whenever they wake up and they go to bed, they think about EARIMA, that EARIMA will go up, even members will be more. I’ve been getting out of emails, members are helping me to answer emails. Sometimes I do much better. But sometimes just, you know, comes shame upon me. So there is a lot to harness. There is a lot of these, hanging fruits for EARIMA but in order to achieve that, we need someone who is a full time person working for EARIMA.

Joy Owango:
But let’s not ignore what you’ve achieved, and that is what you’re also celebrating. You’ve done quite a bit. Yes there’s a need for a full time member who can now take you to the next steps, the next you know, to you know, the next 10 years, the next 20 years. But what you’ve done so far from nothing, is a testament to not only commitment and passion, but also supporting the community in East Africa, particularly when it comes to this amazing Aassociation and sector on research management.
So thank you so much. Prof. Edwinus Lyaya:Lyaya, this has been a very interesting conversation. Your efforts are not taken for granted as we prepare for the upcoming year EARIMA conference that is going to take place in Uganda next month. And thank you so much for making time to be with us.

Prof. Edwinus Lyaya:
Bye. Thank you very much.

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