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Artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT, Grammarly AI, and Copilot have rapidly entered the academic routines of university students worldwide, including in Malawi. Yet higher learning institutions in Malawi have largely operated without formal policies to guide how students may use these tools in academic work. This study proposes a systematic mapping and analysis of AI use policies, or the absence thereof, across Malawian universities, examining three interrelated dimensions: the existence and content of institutional AI policies, the degree of harmonization among institutions, and student awareness of and adherence to any existing policies. Using a mixed methods approach combining document analysis, structured surveys, and key informant interviews, the study will be conducted across a purposively selected sample of public and private universities over a compressed six month period. Findings will be shared with the National Council for Higher Education and each participating university to inform policy direction, and will contribute to a growing body of Sub Saharan African higher education research on AI governance. The study is grounded in Technology Acceptance Theory and institutional policy theory, and is positioned as a timely contribution as Malawi finalizes its National Science, Technology and Innovation Policy 2025 to 2035.
What are this project's goals? How will you achieve them?
Project Goals
Establish, for the first time, a factual baseline of which Malawian universities have formal AI use policies, and what those policies actually say.
Determine whether existing policies are harmonized across institutions or diverge in ways that create unequal or contradictory standards for students.
Measure how aware students are of their institution's policy (or lack of one), and how closely their actual AI use matches it.
Identify the practical barriers, such as cost of detection tools, unreliable connectivity, and faculty capacity, that are shaping whether and how universities can govern AI use.
Turn all of the above into a policy brief that Malawi's Ministry of Education and National Council for Higher Education can act on while the national STI policy is still being finalized.
How we'll achieve them
Document analysis: collect every publicly available and institutionally shared AI use policy, academic integrity policy, student handbook, and exam regulation from 6 to 7 purposively selected universities, and score them against a coding framework adapted from UNESCO's AI competency framework, covering scope, permitted and prohibited uses, disclosure requirements, and enforcement.
Student survey: administer a structured questionnaire to a stratified sample of 300 to 420 students (by faculty and year of study), via Google Forms, KoboCollect, and print, to capture AI use patterns, policy awareness, and self reported adherence.
Key informant interviews: conduct 15 to 20 semi structured interviews with registrars, ICT directors, dean of faculties ,lectures and quality assurance leads to understand why policies exist or don't, and what's blocking harmonization.
Integrated analysis: combine descriptive and inferential statistics (SPSS/STATA) with thematic coding (NVivo) to build a comparative matrix showing how each institution stacks up against reference standards.
Dissemination: share institution level feedback reports with each university and a national policy brief with the Ministry of Education and National Council for Higher Education before publishing, so findings can influence policy directly rather than sitting in a journal.
How will the fund be used ?
The budget covers the full six month field study across 6 to 7 institutions, MWK 50,200,000 total (approximately $28,600 to $29,000):
Research personnel, approximately $13,400. Salaries for the Principal Investigator and two research assistants for the full six months, covering data collection, cleaning, and analysis across all sites.
Travel and field costs, approximately $6,670. Multiple visits to each of the 6 to 7 universities, spread across the northern, central, and southern regions, for document collection, survey administration, and interviews.
Data collection tools, approximately $1,310. Printing for the paper based survey option, KoboCollect licensing, and consent forms, needed to reach students without reliable internet access.
Stakeholder engagement and workshops, approximately $2,220. An inception event to brief participating institutions and a dissemination event to present findings to the National Council for Higher Education and university leadership.
Software and analysis tools, approximately $910. SPSS or STATA licensing for the quantitative survey analysis and NVivo for thematic coding of interview transcripts.
Report production and publication fees, approximately $1,480. Formatting and open access fees for the peer reviewed journal submission.
Contingency, approximately $2,620 (10%). Buffer against the added execution risk of compressing what was originally a twelve month design into six months.
Nwaka Mwambene, Principal Investigator.
Will lead the project, overseeing study design, stakeholder engagement, and coordination across all research phases. Brings over sixteen years of experience in AI Policy in Malawi Higher Education | Nwaka Mwambene | MEIRU, Malawi | 2026 Page 9 Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning across eight international NGOs, including Islamic Relief Worldwide, GOAL Ireland, Concern Worldwide, and Project Concern International. Has served as Head of M&E; on three USAID funded projects and as Consortium M&E; Technical Lead across a three NGO consortium under the Start Network. Previously drafted and secured funding for a Research Gap Analysis and Assessment Study for Emergency Response in Chikwawa and Nsanje districts, one of only two studies funded globally under the Start Network UK Learning Grant. Has co authored and published two peer reviewed papers on community health systems strengthening in Malawi, and has worked with numerous research institutions in Malawi, including the University of Malawi's Centre for Social Research. Currently works as a Research Data Team Administrator at the Malawi Epidemiology and Intervention Research Unit.
Anganile Mazolo Mwambene, Co Investigator. A Lecturer at Kasungu Teachers Training College, holding an MSc in Education. Has published a number of papers in the education field, bringing academic and pedagogical expertise to the study's analysis of AI policy in higher education contexts.
Bernardo Gideon, Co Investigator. Holds an MSc in Agriculture and is an expert in Monitoring and Evaluation. Has designed and conducted a number of studies, contributing strong methodological and M&E expertise to the project's research design and data quality assurance.
What are the most likely causes and outcomes if this project fails?
Most likely causes of failure
Institutional non-cooperation. A university declines to share its policy documents or grant survey and interview access, particularly if it has no formal AI policy and is reluctant to have that gap documented. This is the single biggest risk given how new and sensitive the topic is for university administrations.
Ethical and administrative approval delays. National Committee on Research in Social Sciences and Humanities approval, plus separate institutional review board sign off at each university, could take longer than the one month allotted in Phase 1, which would compress every later phase in a timeline that already has little slack.
Survey non-response or low completion. Connectivity gaps and unreliable electricity could suppress survey completion at some sites faster than paper based collection can compensate, leaving the achieved sample below the 300 to 420 target and weakening the statistical analysis.
Underfunding relative to scope. If the project raises only partial funding without adjusting the geographic and sample size ambitions to match, the study could end up thin at every site rather than solid at fewer sites, which produces weaker, less citable findings than a properly scoped smaller study.
Team capacity strain. With only two research assistants covering 6 to 7 institutions across three regions in six months, illness, staff turnover, or a research assistant leaving mid study would hit the timeline hard, since there's no slack built in beyond the 10% contingency budget.
Most likely outcomes if it fails
Partial rather than total failure is the more probable pattern. A likelier scenario than complete collapse is that the study lands with fewer institutions, a smaller sample, or a thinner qualitative round than planned, which weakens the comparative claims (harmonization and cross-institution benchmarking need enough institutions to compare) even if the core "does a policy exist" question is still answerable.
The policy brief loses its moment. The value of this research is partly time bound: it's positioned to inform Malawi's National Science, Technology and Innovation Policy (2025 to 2035) while it's still being finalized. A significant delay means the findings arrive after that policy window closes, converting a live policy input into a retrospective academic paper with less real-world influence.
Reputational cost is contained but real. Funders lose their contribution and the team's credibility for future funding asks takes a hit, though the risk to participating institutions and students is low since no primary data collection begins before ethical clearance, and anonymization limits downside even in a worst case data handling failure.
Salvageable value even in failure. Because the document analysis phase (Month 1 to 2) is the cheapest and least access dependent component, a failure that occurs later, in survey or KII phases, would still leave the policy mapping matrix as a usable partial output worth publishing on its own.
How much money have you raised in the last 12 months, and from where?
Currently have not secured any funding for this project. This proposal is at the stage of seeking a research grant to cover the full study costs; no institutional or donor funding has yet been committed. However, I bring a strong track record in research funding and project leadership. I single-handedly developed a research proposal that secured £50,000 in funding under the Start Network UK Learning Grant, for a Gap Analysis and Assessment Study on Emergency Response in Chikwawa and Nsanje districts in Malawi, one of only two studies funded globally under that grant. I have also served as Head of Monitoring and Evaluation on three USAID-funded projects, and as Consortium M&E Technical Lead across a three-NGO consortium (Islamic Relief, GOAL Malawi, and MANEPO) under the Start Network.
There are no bids on this project.