Page 11 - Research & Innovation Report 2020

RESEARCH AND INNOVATION

Message from Directors of

Research and Innovation

Dr Priscilla Mensah (Research Development), Dr Kwezi Mzilikazi (Research
Support & Management) and Dr Nqobile Gumede (Innovation Office)

Our research community had a fruitful and productive year despite the very challenging
conditions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. One of Nelson Mandela University’s
long-term strategic priorities is to create and sustain an environment that encourages,
supports and rewards a vibrant research, scholarship and innovation culture.

Over the past year the Office of Research Development implemented and Science with two each, while Law and Business and
various initiatives in pursuit of an enabling environment that Economic Science had one each. Through the Department of
enhances postgraduate student success and accelerates the career Higher Education and Training’s (DHET) University Capacity
advancement of emerging researchers. Using a combination Development Grant, postgraduate support programmes were
of internal and external funding, 699 postgraduate research presented to academic staff enrolled for higher degrees. These
scholarships were taken up by 177 honours, 369 master’s and 153 structured programmes offered quarterly one-week modules
doctoral students at an overall University Council investment of to help develop sound proposals, literature reviews and data
R33.1-million. An additional R15-million of external funding was collection methods in the first year, with two follow-up support
allocated to the support 71 postdoctoral fellows. modules for data collection and analysis. These programmes
were complemented by a suite of workshops on a wide range of
Through the Black Academics Advancement Programme (BAAP), research and supervision-related topics.
five staff members were funded in 2020 to pursue their doctoral
degrees or postdoctoral research. The National Research Fund’s The hard work of our academics, postdoctoral and research
(NRF) Thuthuka programme has been funding emerging researchers fellows, research chairs, entities, research associates and honorary
for over a decade, with 14 grant-holders at the University in 2020. appointees, saw Nelson Mandela University research outputs
The Nurturing Emerging Scholars Programme (NESP), which was continuing on an upward trajectory for four years in a row. In part,
launched in 2019, is currently in its second phase and the University the Research Publication Management System also increased the
has been allocated four NESP positions, two of which have already efficiency of the submission of the research outputs, contributing
been filled. The 2020 New Generation of Academics Programme to this positive growth. We are pleased to report that all 16 NRF
(nGAP) cohort at Nelson Mandela University consisted of 12 Black rating applications that were submitted were successful, taking
academics, of whom seven were women. the total number of Mandela NRF-rated researchers to 87. The
growth of the number of rated researchers is an area that we are
With respect to distribution across faculties, Education and consistently working on, targeting more early career researchers, in
Humanities led with three each, followed by Engineering collaboration with the Office for Research Development.

“ ... all 16 NRF rating applications that were

submitted were successful ... “

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