This is the first in a four-part blog series on the challenges faced by practitioners of Research Uptake. The first blog looks at the concept of Research Uptake. Where did the term originate and how did it evolve?

Urban and peri-urban farming is a fact of life in many developing countries. In Africa, you’d be hard pushed to name a single country where this is not the case. It is here to stay—and to be encouraged rather than eradicated—as more and more people migrate from rural to urban areas, food prices continue to escalate, salaries remain low and jobs are scarce. By 2010, for the first time in history, 52 percent of people globally were living in urban areas and the number keeps escalating. At least 800 million of them in developing countries practice urban and peri-urban agriculture and livestock rearing (UPAL).

* For the purposes of this blog, the term “university communicator” is used as a blanket term to refer to university communications, media and public relations officers; research, research management, extension and community outreach officers; and scientists and researchers acting as communicators of their own research—in fact anybody involved in promoting Research Uptake at an institution of higher learning.

Research done into drug abuse among the youth of Rwanda has had significant impact in that country, not only changing its policy direction, but also giving rise to interventions by civil society and other stakeholders, ultimately leading to changes in behaviour at grassroots level. Many factors must have played a role in the success of the uptake of this research done last year and concluded earlier this year at the Kigali Health Institute, including the fact that the study was done in collaboration with the country’s ministry of youth, which one may assume indicates commitment on the part of the government. But the effective communication of the research findings to segmented audiences had to have played a major role in this success story.