The Malawi Polytechnic is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Malawi (UNIMA) and is located in Blantyre the Southern part of Malawi. The University of Malawi has been in existence since 1965 and is a federal university with four constituent colleges. The federal university has a student population of 13,000. The others colleges include Chancellor College located in Zomba, the old capital city of Malawi, Kamuzu College of Nursing located in the Lilongwe the Capital City of Malawi and College of Medicine located in Blantyre. The Malawi Polytechnic has five faculties, four centres and sixteen departments. The faculties include Commerce, Engineering, Applied Sciences, Education and Media Studies, and the Built Environment. The departments cover such disciplines as: accounting, management, engineering in fields of civil, mechanical, civil, mining and electrical as well as architecture, quantity surveying, land surveying, land economy, physical planning, physics and biochemical sciences, technical teaching and journalism. The four centres include Water Health Sanitation and Appropriate Technology (WASTHED), Management Development Centre (MDC), Transport Technology Transfer Centre (TTC) and Continuing Education Centre (CEC). New ideas, innovations that come from departments, faculties and centres are promoted incubated through the Innovative Hub Centre (IHC) located within the campus of the Malawi Polytechnic. This multidisciplinary nature of the college puts the Malawi Polytechnic a constituent college of University of Malawi in a unique position to meet the multi-faceted needs of industries and developmental needs of the society at large. The Malawi Polytechnic has trained a number of individuals at certificate, diploma undergraduate and postgraduate degree levels. Most of these individuals are self-employed or employed in industry, business, government and civil societies. Its vision is to become a premier institution that creates a culture of excellence achieved by a mission of advancing knowledge, professional competencies and innovation in science, technology, commerce and communication through excellence in demand driven education, research, consultancy and outreach. Furthermore, it is committed to the following core values are: excellence, professionalism, innovation, entrepreneurship, responsiveness and equity. The Polytechnic is committed to supporting and developing all researchers so that they achieve the highest standards of excellence. It focuses on creating a positive and productive experience for all research staff by providing support and development opportunities to make researchers competitive candidates for careers within or outside academia. As a result, its academic members of staff including faculties and departments have received various awards locally and internationally. The college is currently involved with conducting research in line with Malawi Development Strategy for Socioeconomic development of Malawi and the region. Some of the research being pursued includes the sustainable off-grid electrification of rural villages, affordable options for rural sanitation, instruments for measuring construction processes, use of plants as an alternative to treating water in rural areas, application of vibration to diagnosis of damage and affordable building materials. The Malawi Polytechnic has a student population of 6,536 and 243 of these are postgraduate students. It runs about 37 undergraduate and 15 postgraduate programmes and graduates about 1000 per year. The college has 211 academic members of staff.