Held under the theme: Reimagining Resilience, Governance, and Social Transformation in a Changing World, Hekima University College holds its 4th Annual Research Week, a three-day academic gathering dedicated to research presentations, dialogue sessions, and a book launch on the final day. The hybrid event brought together students, faculty, scholars, and partners both on-site and online to reflect on how academic research can respond to today’s social, environmental, and governance challenges.
The event, which took place between 22nd and 24th October 2025, began with warm words of welcome from participants, emphasizing that it would foster learning, interaction, and intellectual growth among both undergraduate and postgraduate students.
In his opening remarks, Chancy Ntelela, SMM, President of the Hekima University College Students Association (HUCSA), framed the week’s theme as deeply personal. Drawing from his recent visit to his home country, Malawi, he shared an inspiring reflection on resilience, terming it as not just mere survival, but as the active reimagining of the future amid adversity.
He reminded participants that academic inquiry should be a “personal encounter,” a journey of discovering ideas that shape both minds and societies. Quoting theologian Jürgen Moltmann, he invited students to “hope beyond the path.”
Professor Elias Opongo, SJ, Director of the Center for Research, Training, and Publication (CRTP) and Director of Research at Hekima University College, in his address to the participants highlighted the evolution of the Research Week since its inception four years ago, describing it as central to Hekima’s mission of scholarship, dialogue, and transformative engagement.
Prof. Opongo introduced the keynote speakers, Dr. Tekla Wanjala and Mr. Chris Lowney, both prominent figures in peacebuilding and Jesuit leadership. He recalled that Hekima’s strong peace tradition began in 1999 with the Hekima Peace Forum, which later gave birth to the Hekima Institute of Peace Studies and International Relations (HIPSIR).
Prof. Opongo emphasized that research at Hekima is not an academic formality but a vocation, a calling to engage the world courageously and intelligently. He outlined CRTP’s extensive regional research initiatives since 2019, which include conflict monitoring and analysis in Kenya, Ethiopia, South Sudan, and the DRC; human rights and governance studies in Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, and South Sudan; small arms and state fragility research in nine African countries; women’s political engagement and leadership in social change; and environmental peacebuilding projects in Kenya’s Migori and Kwale regions among others.
Prof. Opongo announced CRTP’s new three-year research partnership in the DRC, funded by the Open Society Foundation, and the development of a real-time conflict heat map for early warning and response across Africa.
He urged faculty and students to make research ethical, evidence-based, and socially responsive, stressing that scholarship must “connect classrooms with communities, and ideas with policies.”
He further underscored that today’s digital world calls for theology and peace studies to engage online and communicate globally with relevance and creativity.
Prof. Opongo concluded with a challenge to scholars to embody the true Hekima spirit of not merely studying the world, but transforming it.
He invited participants to view research and publication as acts of hope, care, and social transformation, especially at a time when global conflicts, inequality, and moral uncertainty are on the rise.
By Pamela Adinda, HUC International Office and Communications Coordinator.
