The Training Centre in Communication(TCC), is the first African-based training centre to teach effective communication skills to scientists. TCC is a Trust, established as a non-profit entity in 2006 and is registered in Kenya. TCC held its first course in October 2006 at Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda and in late 2007, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the University of Nairobi, School of Biological Sciences, and has its headquarters on the Chiromo Campus, Nairobi, Kenya.
TCC has also partnered with Kenyatta University through the Regional Centre for Capacity Development (KU-RCD). KU-RCD’s main responsibility is to enhance capacities, competencies, and competitiveness of University Staff and other institutions in Kenya and in the region of Eastern, Southern and Central Africa. TCC recently partnered with UNES (K) Ltd, one of East Africa’s top 100 companies.
TCC also has satellite operations in Nigeria and South Africa in partnership with Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife and The Innovation Hub respectively.
TCCs’ mission is to contribute to the increase in profile, locally, and internationally, of African science, and its impact on the life of Africans, by improving skills in technical communication in all forms, at academia and other relevant forums, in Africa.
SDG 4- Quality Education
Democratization of Higher Education
One of the biggest challenges researchers in the Global South face is obtaining good quality education. Focusing on higher education, one of the problems universities and research institutes face is lack of capacity to produce good quality research outputs and access to high impact data to conduct research. It is in line with this, that one of our objectives is build research capacity on the accessibility and effective use of Open Access Data to improve research discovery and visibility . This in turn gives researchers in the Global South a level playing field and a competitive edge to produce quality research ,create collaborations and increase their funding pool.
SDG 17 – Partnership for the Goals
For TCC to be relevant and sustainable, we believe in creating partnerships for effective research capacity to be built.
TCC’s Founding Director, Prof.Gabor Lövei is based at Aarhus University (Denmark), Department of Integrated Pest Management, where he does research in ecology, and teaches ecology and scientific communication and regularly teaches on TCC courses.
TCC’s Co-Founding Non Executive Director is Ms Joy Owango.
TCC day-to-day operation is co-ordinated by TCC Programme Manager Mr Harrison Weda.
TCC is supported by an Advisory Committee, composed of respected academics in East Africa and Europe. The role of the Advisory Committee is to support, guide and periodically evaluate the activity of the Centre.
The aim of TCC is to train a group of local Trainers, who will take an increasingly active role in the training program. Currently TCC has local trainers in Sub Sahara Africa who have taken up the training programme and continuous training of trainers takes place to make TCC self sustainable.
Since TCC started its activity, over three thousand (3000) participants from over twenty five (25) different countries and over seventy five (75) institutions have taken part in the long and short courses offered.
