Abstract:
Education is no longer confined to borders of a few countries or continent. Networking and collaboration involves person from different regions and beyond coming together to work in their common interests. The ever increasing investment in knowledge globally has made the concept of research and education more relevant than ever (levacic 2006;Hite 2001) There has been increasing interest among researchers in the concept of research collaboration (katz& martin 1997).The need for collaboration and networking arises from the fact that regardless of their geographical placement, people worldwide now experiences common problems, seeking common solutions requires pulling together resources, some of which may not be local setting, in order to create know lew or add onti the existing one. Purposive sampling technic was employed and the sample size was 6 universities and 6 colleges. Data collection was through questionnaires, observation and interview schedules. This paper present the challenges faced in building strong research networks between universities and higher education institutions within East Africa and Africa in general. The growth and development of the modern economy is increasingly being hinged on the quality of knowledge base and human capital available to the nation. Therefore there is a need of institutions to forge relevant partnerships in order to compete for grants and produce more qualified graduates and higher quality and more relevant research.
