On Thursday, 23rd July 2026, faculty members, researchers, and key institutional associates gathered at Uganda Management Institute’s (UMI) – Jubilee Building for their first hands-on Grant-Writing Seminar and Clinic that was organized by the Institute Research and Innovation Centre (IRIC), the practical working session provided scholars with actionable insights into the mechanics of successful grant acquisitions, UMI’s revamped grants management architecture, and the comprehensive support systems available to researchers. The seminar was designed and spearheaded by Dr. Dennis Aguma, UMI’s Research Grants Officer, who also delivered the Centre’s opening and closing remarks on behalf of Prof. Rose B. Namara, Chief of IRIC, who was away on leave.

The event was officially opened by Assoc. Prof. S. Kasozi Mulindwa, Director of Programmes and Student Affairs. In his keynote address, Assoc. Prof. Mulindwa underscored that securing research grants is central to resourcing and elevating UMI’s research-led mandate. “Since 2004, UMI has carried a dual mandate as both a Management Development and a degree-granting institute. Being a research-led institution carries an obligation to be adequately resourced—it is not merely an aspiration to recite.”

He also highlighted that grant funding serves a three-fold purpose: financing impactful studies, fostering faculty professional development, and building the rigorous evidence base required of a premier higher education institution. He signalled that, going forward, success in winning competitive research grants will serve as a key metric for academic progression and staff assessment.

Assoc. Prof. Mulindwa also announced the upcoming UMI Internal Research Grants Call, backed by the UGX 2 Billion FY 2026/27 Research Agenda. This initiative is squarely aligned with Uganda’s national socio-economic transformation goals. Encouraging staff to leverage this opportunity to publish and lead, he officially declared the seminar open.

Following the opening address, Dr. Dennis Aguma presented findings from the recent institutional Research Grants Survey, outlining historical bottlenecks and unveiling the updated end-to-end framework designed to support researchers. He mentioned that the Key components of UMI’s new Three-Part Grants Architecture include:

• Acquisition: Strategic intelligence, revival of interdisciplinary research clusters, and proposal development.
• Support & Quality Assurance: Comprehensive administrative review, budget optimization, and compliance management.
• Knowledge Translation: Post-award management, policy brief formulation, and research dissemination.

Dr. Aguma reassured participants that under the new Research Grants Office protocols, “no researcher at UMI will ever have to write a grant proposal alone.”

The clinic featured master classes from distinguished guest speakers who shared practical strategies for institutional growth and proposal mastery.

Prof. Abaho (Makerere University Business School) addressed the fine line between a merely “competent” proposal and a funded one. He stressed that winning proposals are built long before a call opens through strategic positioning, networks, and pre-call readiness mainly looking at two basics,

• Assessor Perspective: What reviewers actively look for and the common pitfalls that cause strong technical ideas to fail.
• Stakeholder Alignment: Managing co-investigators, academic departments, and external partners to present a unified, high-impact proposal.

Dr. Nixon Niyonzima, PhD Uganda Cancer Institute, (Building an Institution That Wins—and Sustains—Grants). He chronicled the transformation of the Uganda Cancer Institute (UCI) into a globally respected, multi-million-dollar research directorate. His practical case study demonstrated how visionary strategy translates into tangible results that is to say,

• Institutional Absorptive Capacity: Establishing robust financial governance, ethics oversight, and compliance frameworks that convince international donors of an institution’s safety and reliability.
• Failure Points & Resilience: Identifying operational bottlenecks that occur during rapid grant scaling and implementing preventive systems.

Navigating the Financials: Budgets, Overheads, and Incentives plus Addressing one of the most critical aspects of proposal development, Mr. James Luzige, the Institute Bursar, led an interactive session on grant financial mechanics. He indicated the key Financial Takeaways for Researchers that included;

• Direct vs. Indirect Costs: Preventing unrecovered overheads from turning grants into institutional liabilities.
• UMI Fee Structure: Navigating institutional fee caps alongside diverse donor overhead policies.
• Costing & Compliance: Formulating credible, audit-proof budgets so as to avoid post-award queries.
• Investigator Incentives: Clarifying financial benefits and honoraria such as structures for participating staff.

The clinic concluded with a plenary Q&A session. A central point of discussion focused on staff reward structures and the degree of financial autonomy Principal Investigators (PIs) retain over project budgets compared to peer institutions.

The active engagement reflected a clear institutional readiness among UMI staff to adopt a proactive research culture. With streamlined systems, internal funding, and direct technical backing from the Research Grants Office, UMI is strategically positioned to expand its research footprint across the region.