Meet Dr Loice Natukunda, Lecturer of Research Methods at the University of Lincoln. Plus winner of Vitae research Impact Culture and Engagement (ICE) 2023 award.
Please would you provide a very short list of the highlights of your career to date?
I currently serve as a Lecturer of Research Methods at the University of Lincoln where I teach, and lead research related postgraduate modules as well as represent the University on the British Academy Early Career Researchers Network Midlands and Mid-Wales Governance Group. Before joining Lincoln, I worked with Makerere University in Uganda as a lecturer of Human Resource Management and volunteered in multiple interuniversity research capacity building initiatives in Africa. I am a founding member of the Network for Education and Multidisciplinary Research Africa (NEMRA) and still actively participate in research capacity and network building in Africa. I earned my PhD in Management at the University of Sheffield, and my MBA is from Hanze University in the Netherlands. I have won various awards including the Vitae research Impact Culture and Engagement (ICE) 2023 award, visiting fellowship from GESIS institute for the social sciences, Germany, and the University of Sheffield Teaching Assistantship.
Please would you tell us about your research/teaching and the area it focuses on? Plus, how you became interested in this?
My research focuses on human resource development and management in Africa. Originally, I was interested in understanding the adoption of western designed models of HRM into the Africa context and communitarian tendencies of employees at work in local and international Africa based organisations. Having studied and worked in Africa and Europe, I realised that the cross-cultural questions about people management were very complex with minimum attention given to them in knowledge production and practice. I noticed various assumptions around universalistic tendencies to manage people. I was uncomfortable with the unquestioned application of approaches that give minimum attention to the indigenous context. I also study the process of decolonising methodological approaches to collecting and making sense of qualitative data on management in Africa. I am a qualitative researcher and use this experience to teach interpretivist approaches to make meaning of social phenomena.
I have increasingly now focused my research on the research and researcher development landscape in Africa. I am interested in understating the dynamics of equitable research partnerships between Africa and the Global North, researcher mobility, the factors impacting research capacity building in Africa and the general issues affecting the research culture on the continent.
You are currently a Lecturer in Research Methods at the University of Lincoln, please would you tell us more about that experience?
The University of Lincoln is situated in a quiet and hospitable city which makes it a great workplace. My classes contain mostly of international students from Africa and Asia. Having been an international student in the UK myself, I enjoy guiding these students as I can empathise with them and understand their experiences. Research methods is team taught which enables me to learn from other academics about the management and delivery of the module as well as supervision of research projects.
What is your typical workday like?
I usually start my day by checking emails, I check my calenda for important scheduled events and then plan my day. My diary typically has in activities including team meetings, I could be completing a grant application or research article, deliver a lecture, meet personal tutees of research supervisee, attend a development event, or do some activities relating to module administration. I may also once in while be conducting a research capacity building event for Africa based researchers or related activities for the British Academy early career researchers’ network. I enjoy walking along the canal and watching ducks during breaks.
You helped in founding the Network for Education and Multidisciplinary Research Africa (NEMRA). Please would you describe the organisation and your involvement with it?
NEMRA was founded in 2018 to provide an interuniversity networking platform for postgraduate students, researchers and practitioners interested in research for and about Africa. I was inspired during my PhD at the University of Sheffield through the White Rose University Consortium which supports doctoral training collaboratively across the universities of Leeds, Sheffield, and York as well as the Northern Advanced Research Training (NART) a network of 16 research-led universities in the north of England. I noticed that while Universities in the UK used joint efforts to build capacity for research and collaboratively responded to social needs through research, Africa had isolated initiatives and players worked pretty much in silos. NEMRA was formed after the realisation that if the limited available resources were brought together and an environment for interuniversity peer support enabled among the players, the process of nurturing researchers in Africa would be accelerated. I also worked as the first Managing Director for NEMRA during the inception years of the network. My work involved overseeing the formal registration process, membership & partnership mobilisation as well as organising the research capacity building and mentorship programmes as complementary efforts to the regular research training initiatives offered by universities.
You won an award for Research Culture Impact through Researcher Development through your work with NEMRA at the Vitae International Research Development Conference. Please would you tell us about that experience?
Vitae’s Research culture impact through researcher development award aims to showcase activities or work within researcher development that have a positive impact on improving research culture. The Vitae’s researcher development framework promotes a holistic approach to research capacity building and mentorship taking care of not merely the intellectual abilities to do research but also personal effectiveness, networking, research management and impact. NEMRA adopted this approach during its early years deliberately running activities that were aimed at transforming the research culture in Uganda and on the continent. Monthly interuniversity research workshops were conducted in Central and Western Uganda with various institutions taking part to host them. Mentor/mentee relationships (ECRs based in Africa linked to a senior academic around the world) were initiated. Following the Covid 19 lockdown restriction in March 2020, WhatsApp research topical discussions were conducted before resorting to the Zoom platform. NEMRA then won the first grant as a seed fund from the Government of Uganda through the Makerere Research and innovation fund in August 2020 towards creating an Interuniversity Research and Innovation community for the ECRs. It was not common for Universities in Uganda to jointly bid for research capacity building funding. This boosted efforts to the mission and various networks with national and international partners were initiated to provide the members with a research experience beyond their individual institutions.
We were honoured to see our efforts to transform the research culture in Africa recognised by a key stakeholder in researcher development like Vitae.
You have an upcoming workshop with the British Academy Early Career Researcher Network that includes “Understanding the power dynamics in Sub-Saharan Africa research-based projects”. Are you able to give a brief introduction to this topic?
The workshop is targeting ECRs in the UK with interest in data collection in Africa. While researchers based in Africa (and some senior researchers in the Global North) may be conversant with these debates and have mastered the reflexive approaches to conducting projects in Africa, the topic may be new for ECRs in the UK who aspire to do research in Africa or supervise doctoral students with projects exploring Africa based phenomena. I and a colleague will be sharing our insider/outsider experiences of the field in Africa and what it takes to negotiate the power dynamics in Sub-Saharan Africa research-based projects, the implications of the dominance of Western designed approaches and methodologies as well as the place of indigenous ways of knowing.
For further reading:
Could you tell us a little about your background, where you are from in Uganda, where you have studied, how this influenced you? Plus, how this led to you researching in the UK?
I was born and raised in the Western part of Uganda. I had a biological sciences background and worked with Uganda’s National Agricultural Research Organisation. I was involved in in-vitro micropropagation and cell culture of the Ugandan bananas for genetic transformation. It was through this work that I travelled internationally to other countries in Africa and Europe. The exposure beyond Uganda stirred in me a desire to understand people and the varied cultures. I decided to change my career and enrolled for BBA with Human Resources Management as a major. I then deliberately pursued postgraduate opportunities abroad to be exposed more and to learn about the world.
What are the differences you have found in research culture in Uganda and the UK?
Unlike in Uganda where there is a near absence of proper research management systems, practices and structures, institutions in the UK tend to have fully fledged research management offices run by professional research developers, grant managers and research administrators who support academic and research staff. Universities in Uganda tend to be heavily inclined to teaching with minimum attention to aspects of the institutional research culture.
What cultural differences have you noticed between Uganda and England/UK?
I have noticed a few things about food. I do not understand why English people have a few drops of cold milk in their tea. In Uganda tea is drunk hot and with reasonable amount of milk in it. I also have not gotten used to having bread stuffed with other things (a.k.a. a sandwich) for lunch. Lunch in Uganda is usually a hot heavy meal. Apart from food, I noticed that older people in the UK are ok living on their own, they treasure their independence. In Uganda, families tend to take in their older family members or find relatives to live with them.
How do you find living in the city of Lincoln?
Living in the UK during winter can be quite challenging as I never get used to the cold. However, Lincoln seems to get mild winters, the snow melts away quickly and there is never black ice on the walkways to worry about. Lincoln is a small city with almost everything in a walking distance. The people are also very friendly and hospitable to the university’s international community. The canals, castle, cathedral and huge Hartsholme park make up the city’s relaxing spots.
As an international researcher in the UK, what advice would you give to others considering working or studying outside their home country?
Academic mobility provides a wide array of opportunities to discover knowledge and practices in ways that would otherwise not be possible without leaving one’s country. It is usually a bold step that one has to make and involves a lot of tedious procedures, but dividends are high. In case someone is trying to get an opportunity, they should never be put off by unsuccessful attempts (those can be many) but keep their eyes on the dream and try as many times as necessary. I found it useful to mingle and integrate with the local community. So, people considering moving out of their country may plan to identify opportunities for social activities with the local people and not just only stick around people from their home country. It is also helpful to look out for opportunities for mutual benefits between the home and host country, establish networks and collaborative activities.
Are there any links to your work, or department at University of Lincoln, or NEMRA, that you wish to be shared at the bottom of the article?
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/er-01-2021-0045/full/html
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/23322373.2016.1253406
https://staff.lincoln.ac.uk/489de337-f978-45b2-a9d4-5f069e95c4f4
https://nemraafrica.org/iric-ecru-project/
Do you have any social media accounts that you wish to share with your article?
https://www.linkedin.com/in/loice-natukunda-a34ab312/