MUK dons decry slow commercialisation of innovations

Apr 16, 2015

Prof George William Nasinyama, the former deputy director for research at Makerere revealed that it costs about $4,000 to acquire IP rights in Africa.

By Innocent Anguyo

 

THE inability of many ground-breaking researches undertaken at Makerere University to translate into popular consumable products has been attributed to the high cost of acquiring intellectual property (IP) rights.

 

According to the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), intellectual property rights allow creators or owners of patents, trademarks or copyrighted works to benefit from their own work or investment in a creation.

 

Intellectual property equally enables consumers to confidently identify and buy products or services with reliable, international trademark protection and enforcement mechanisms- thereby discouraging counterfeiting and piracy.

 

Addressing the press at Makerere University on Thursday, the head of the institution’s directorate of research and graduate studies Dr Buyinza Mukadasi expressed concern that as much as Uganda’s inventions could address both local and global challenges, the colossal costs of obtaining IP rights stood in their way.

 

Prof George William Nasinyama, the former deputy director for research at Makerere revealed that it costs about $4,000 to acquire IP rights in Africa. For an inventor to expand IP rights to cover Asia, it would cost $11,000. Obtaining rights for Europe could require as much as $20,000.

 

Nasinyama nevertheless noted that Makerere has now started laying emphasis on footing the bills for acquiring IP rights for some of the institution’s crucial innovations.

 

“We are also sensitising our researchers to seek advice from the directorate of research on how they can best go about acquiring IP rights for their innovations,” said Nasinyama.

 

Nasinyama and Mukadasi had convened the press conference held at Makerere University to announce the programme for the institution’s forthcoming international research and innovations dissemination conference slated for April 20 and 21 at Hotel Africana in Kampala.

 

The conference will be used to disseminate findings of research conducted at Makerere with the support of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida).

 

To be held under the theme ‘community transformation through research, innovations and knowledge translation’, presentations at the conference will made under areas of- health and health systems; natural resource utilisation; conservation and environmental sustainability; food security, safety and value addition; culture, socio-economic development, social justice, governance, conflict and disaster management; and advances in education, science and technology.

 

The Swedish Ambassador to Uganda- Urban Andersson lauded the research collaboration between Makerere and Sida- saying it has resulted into development of solutions to numerous challenges.

 

“The results emanating from collaborative research projects have allowed Sweden to increase its knowledge and understanding of areas such as malaria and other tropical diseases, which were hitherto not possible for us to research,” said Andersson in a statement.

 

Since 2000 when the collaboration between Makerere and Sida began, there have been three consecutive research agreement periods (five years each), enabling Uganda’s most populous university to receive a s total of about $75m from Sweden.

 

In the next five years running up to 2020, Makerere - seeks the support of Sida to among other things train- 100 academics to Masters Degree level and 200 academics from public universities to PhD level. 

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