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Good practice Imported

SHEDS — Uganda's She-Data Science Fellowship Builds a Pipeline of Women AI & Bioinformatics Researchers

Uganda · Kampala · See the Uganda profile · See the Kampala profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 25% 60/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Makerere's African Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and UCSF's Institute for Global Health Sciences fully fund Ugandan women through AI, machine-learning and bioinformatics postgraduate research (2024–2027); 46 fellows enrolled or graduated so far.

46
Fellows enrolled or graduated to date (as of mid-2026)
2
Fully funded PhD fellows at September 2025 launch (September 2025)
5
Fully funded MSc fellows at September 2025 launch (September 2025)
100+
Graduate students trained by the Makerere ACE node since 2019
SHEDS — Uganda's She-Data Science Fellowship Builds a Pipeline of Women AI & Bioinformatics Researchers

Details

Maturity
Pilot
Promoter
African Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Data-Intensive Sciences, Makerere University, with UCSF Institute for Global Health Sciences
Period
2024–2027
Keywords
higher education, data science, artificial intelligence, bioinformatics, gender equity

Context

SHEDS (She-Data Science) is a fellowship run by the African Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Data-Intensive Sciences at Makerere University's Infectious Diseases Institute in Kampala, in partnership with the University of California San Francisco's Institute for Global Health Sciences (UCSF IGHS), launched in 2024 and funded through 2027 to address the underrepresentation of women in Uganda's data-science and bioinformatics workforce.

Activities

Fellows receive full tuition and living-expense coverage at Master's and PhD level, are paired with faculty mentors in their research area, and work in thematic groups on antimicrobial resistance, malaria and cancer, with some also training at UCSF's Proctor Foundation.

Results

As of mid-2026, UCSF IGHS reports 46 fellows have completed or are currently enrolled, and fellows have already produced applied research results including identification of a cervical-cancer biomarker and a breast-cancer protein with vaccine potential.

Conclusions

SHEDS sits inside the World Bank-backed Africa Centers of Excellence network, whose Makerere node has trained over 100 graduate students since 2019, giving the fellowship a plausible path to scale beyond its current single-institution pilot.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k)
Time to results
Short (< 1 year)
Staffing & skills
Delivered by the African Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Data-Intensive Sciences (Makerere University) in partnership with UCSF's Institute for Global Health Sciences., Fellows are paired with faculty mentors in their research area and work in thematic research groups.

Conditions for success

  • Full tuition and living-expense coverage removing financial barriers for women fellows.
  • Partnership with an established international research institution (UCSF).
  • Embedding within the World Bank-backed Africa Centers of Excellence network.

Commonly funded by

Philanthropic / foundation funding

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

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