The Directorate of Research and Innovation (formerly the Directorate of Research and Development) was established in 2011 to coordinate research activities across the University. Over the past decade, the Directorate has built a research culture that has generated consistent growth in external funding, peer-reviewed publications, patents, and community-facing applied research.
Core functions:
- Management of research grants and external funding partnerships
- Oversight of the MKU Institutional Scientific and Ethics Review Committee (ISERC), NACOSTI Accreditation No. NACOSTI/NSEC/AC/01513, valid February 2025 to February 2028, covering Health Sciences, Biomedical, Biological, Social and Environmental Sciences
- Coordination of the Centre for Malaria Elimination (CME) and the Institute of Tropical Medicine
- Publication support, journal indexing guidance, and researcher profile management (Google Scholar, ORCID, Scopus)
- Coordination of the Vice-Chancellor’s Research and Innovation Grant — enhanced from KES 20M to KES 30M in 2023
- Support for intellectual property registration through KIPI: 8 patents registered (2023–2025) across staff and student innovations
Flagship research partnerships and programmes:
- Kenya-Japan Scientific Symposium on Immunology & Next-Generation Malaria Vaccines (June 2026, supported by JSPS)
- Centre for Malaria Elimination (CME), a model for sustainable North-South research infrastructure (MKU + Ehime University, Japan)
- Cambridge Africa ALBORADA Research Fund, Biomedical Sciences
- Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Global Health Collaboration
- Erasmus+ KA171 Mobility Grants; STEP Programme; Africa meets Bavaria (TU Munich)