Since 2009, TRAC FM has been grounded in academic endeavour — surfacing the realities of underheard communities and amplifying their voices to promote representative democracy.

Our methodology has always been rooted in Human-Centred Design, predating the term itself, and has from its inception generated academic publications and practical knowledge on how to leverage technology to strengthen civic space.

Today, with the rapid advance of AI, TRAC FM has deepened its commitment to research and is actively collaborating with universities and practitioners to shape debate on how AI can benefit civil society — and how civil society can protect itself from corporate capture and authoritarian misuse.

To this end, TRAC FM works with researchers at the University of Amsterdam, Makerere University and other institutions to maintain a living lab where theory and experimental practice drive the development of AI applications suited to the Global South, and generate insights into the social impact of AI on societies that are largely offline, low-literacy or low-connectivity.

We actively contribute to exchange programmes where international master's students conduct fieldwork using TRAC FM data, assessing the impact of our campaigns and advancing theory on the role of media technology in public debate and civic space.

We have contributed to academic publications in the field of ICT4Development and hosted student delegations from the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) under the leadership of Prof. Guy Grossman, Wageningen University and the University of Amsterdam, among others.

For many years, TRAC FM's Kampala office was generously hosted on the campus of the International University of East Africa. The partnership enabled collaborative research and student exchange programmes, with IUEA students working in TRAC FM call-centres and translation facilities in support of human-in-the-loop quality assurance.

Together with our academic partners, we are actively applying for research grants to advance responsible deployment of AI in Sub-Saharan Africa and to explore the use of AI in local newsrooms.

TRAC FM welcomes collaboration with researchers and developers working at the frontier of Voice AI for low-resource languages, and with those exploring practical ways to involve and represent disconnected communities in the public debates and data systems that increasingly shape development strategies.