Despite the social and economic challenges of our time, St. Paul’s University (SPU) continues to transform higher education, leveraging 120 years of higher education experiences, collaborations, and partnerships.
The university working groups met on Friday 18th July 2025 at ACK St. Julian’s Retreat Centre to build synergy and formulate the working plan for the FOSTER project. The FOSTER project, is co-funded by the European Commission addressing the Capacity Building in Higher Education (CBHE) action, which aims to strengthen Inclusive, Collaborative and Responsible Science, Technology, and Innovation ecosystem through the implementation of Open Science (OS) principles and values in Kenya and Tanzania Partner Countries (PCs). SPU is one of the nine participating universities drawn from Kenya, Tanzania, and Europe.
Other partners include Daystar University (Project Coordinator) and Garissa University in Kenya; University of Dar Es Salaam and the Eastern and Southern African Management Institute (ESAMI) in Tanzania; University of Zaragoza (Spain), International School for Social and Business Studies, ISBSS (Slovenia), VU Amsterdam University (Netherlands), and European Policy Development and Research Institute, EPDRI (Slovenia), the Project Co-Coordinator.
The SPU one day workshop brought together academic and management members to formulate a working strategy across three key areas: (1) infrastructure development, (2) awareness creation and capacity building, including curriculum integration, and (3) policy review and development. These three areas are critical to the university’s recently launched 2025-2030 strategic plan which seeks to enhance SPU’s leadership in the higher education landscape. The overall FOSTER project has four overarching objectives in each PC, to:
- Promote OS culture and build national and university consensus of the key actors;
- Enhance university transition for sustainable OS practices;
- Advance university OS infrastructure, both physical and digital; and
- Embed OS in university policies and advance national regulatory frameworks.
The meeting began with a devotion from the Dean, School of Theology Dr. Julius Kithinji who drew a correlation from Israelite’s transition period in the book of Isaiah, as similar to SPU’s transition to the new strategic plan. Speaking during the event, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Mwirigi Kiula commented, “I would love to support more of our members to engage in these exchange opportunities that widen perspectives and lead to innovative solutions for the society.” The project leader, Dr. Kevin Muriithi Ndereba observed, “This is an exciting adventure that will enable SPU to position itself in the Kenyan university landscape.”
The University Librarian, Mrs. Irene Kibandi, noted that SPU has already held citizen engagement initiatives with surrounding schools to foster reading culture as well as an ongoing open coding project with high school students. Grace Kinyanjui facilitated an exciting discussion on embedding open science through infrastructure, which will be key for the virtual learning campus at SPU. Other members present in the meeting included the University Registrar, Dr. Ruth Ndanu King’oo, Director Postgraduate Studies, Dr. John Muhoho, Dean School of Education and Social Sciences, Dr. Petronilla Otuya, ICT Director, George Kihara, and Project Accountant, CPA Margaret Thuo.
Core project team members, Prof. Abraham Waithima, Dr. Ukaiko Ojiambo, and Paul Ruto recently participated in a mobility program at VU, Amsterdam from 16th - 20th June, 2025. They shared how VU University is combining classroom experience, impactful research, and community collaboration through transdisciplinary engagement for the common good. Upcoming activities of the project include mobility visits to the ISBSS in Slovenia from 13th - 17th Oct, 2025 and University of Zaragoza, Spain from 20th - 24th Oct, 2025. The visits will help SPU learn OS best practices so as to contextualize the same for the African higher education ecosystem.
Through the FOSTER project, St. Paul’s University seeks to create new paths in higher education in service to God and humanity, where faith and science are seen as important gifts from God for the advancement of society. See more details here: https://www.spu.ac.ke/index.php/foster-project
#wearespu
#FOSTERproject