ARUA Ushers in New Collaborative PhD Programmes
The ARUA Executive Committee has approved sixteen (16) Collaborative PhD programmes that will begin in January 2026. All the programmes are designed to be four-year programmes that involve 12 months of common course work to be undertaken at all the participating universities, 18 months of immersion in a research project or a period of ‘research apprenticeship’ at another participating institution. The final 18 months will be spent on students’ independent work leading to a thesis under the supervision of a team of both local and international supervisors.
The new programmes, are intended to help deal with the shortage of research capacity in the region, providing a good number of competent researchers working with highly accomplished senior researchers from Africa and the global north. The partnership with the Guild of European Research-intensive Universities (The Guild) has made it possible to develop Clusters of Research Excellence that are behind a number of the new programmes.
The new collaborative PhD programmes are designed to welcome a diverse cohort with a target of 70% female enrollment and also youthful graduates who will be under 35 years of age by the time they complete their studies.
Attached is a list of the approved Collaborative PhD programmes, showing the lead institutions, partner institutions, as well as planned student numbers for each of the 16 programmes that will commence in 2026. ARUA is open to involving more participating universities, including from outside of ARUA and The Guild. Each programme is open to students from all ARUA universities who meet the eligibility criteria to be determined by the partners, as well as other African students. ARUA also expects from this initiative that its universities will graduate 1,000 PhD holders annually in 7 cohorts over a ten-year period.
