The Academic Research Office has provided these guidelines for the purpose of enhancing a systematic research agenda at the United States International University (Africa) as well as stimulating research activities through the use of University Research Centers (URC).

It is the goal of these guidelines that USIU strives to leverage its multi-accreditation along with student and faculty diversity to cultivate an interdisciplinary culture of research and scholarship. Through interdepartmental, interschool, and inter-institutional collaboration, our overall research agenda through the URC will be able to cultivate an interdisciplinary culture. Therefore, these guidelines are intended to provide a broad, flexible set of ideas aimed at moving toward an overarching interdisciplinary vision that will enhance the University's value to our students, faculty, staff, the community and society.

Working under the oversight of the Academic Research Center, and in collaboration with the University Council’s Academic Research Committee (ARC), the URCs will play an important role in broadening the knowledge base which leads to new discoveries and which informs new policies that ensure discoveries are incorporated into society in a productive and beneficial manner.

These same centers also, and simultaneously, will play an important role in educating and training the next generation of innovators, upon whom the quality of the ideas that will cultivate and shape the world of tomorrow depends.

As of 2007, USIU-Africa had two URCs:

1) the Center for Entrepreneurial Excellence Development (CEED) located in the School of Business providing research, workshops and training services

2) Sustainable Development Initiative Center (SUDIC) located in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences.

While these two centers are a good start, further effort is needed to add at least two more centers so that their mandate is neither so broad as to permit the center to pursue virtually any type of activity, nor so narrow as to restrict its ability to adapt. This document covers guidelines in three areas:

1) establishing of a URC,

2) requirements for a URC

3) documenting performance of a URC.

A) Guidelines for Establishing a University Research Center

The general guidelines for establishing new URCs should not only be based on relevant features but also it’s positioning of the university’s image.