Ben Prasadam-Halls, Director of Programmes The Association of Commonwealth Universities

The Nairobi Report (2009) Recommended: Increasing doctorates but protecting quality Mentoring researchers through their early careers Supporting local research training - including soft skills training Re-integrating returning scholars Developing proper career structures for emerging researchers The first report grew out of a meeting in Nairobi that brought together academics from across the African continent with some of their peers from the UK to look at barriers to UK-Africa collaboration. One of the most pressing issues that emerged from this dialogue was the need to better support African early career researchers. It is from this series of reports that the ACU’s work in this area emerged.

Objectives of STARS Build the skills and confidence of early career academics Offer institutions materials to extend the support they are able to offer

Key principles Light touch for busy academics Blended learning Breadth of content over depth All content developed by African based authors International reference groups for relevance Published under a Creative Commons license

STARS Participants 832 researchers 30 institutions 10 countries Gambia x1 Ghana x2 Nigeria x6 Kenya x5 Cameroon x1 Uganda x2 Tanzania x2 Durban University of Technology Stellenbosch University Tshwane University of Tech University of Cape Town University of the Free State University of Limpopo University of Pretoria University of the Witwatersrand Namibia x2 Zimbabwe x1 South Africa x8

STARS Modules Identifying your research niche Finding funding Managing your research project Managing your time Effective collaboration Writing and publishing Communicating research to non-academic audiences Ethics in academic life Supervision STARS tutorial at UCT

Openly available Materials openly available: www.acu.ac.uk/stars