Unisa 2008 Research Report - University of South Africa

C O L L E G E S
college of agRicultuRe
and enviRonmental
sciences | caes
CAES strives to create an enabling environment
for researchers to carry out research work in
line with the Institutional Operational Plan
(IOP) as well as the CAES Research Strategy.
The College Research Strategy was developed
in 2008 following wide consultations, resulting
in five research focus areas:
• Poverty and development studies
• HIV and AIDS social studies
• Science, engineering and technology
• Biomedical, agriculture and environmental
research
• ODl and reflective research.
In order to meet the expectations of CAES in
research, the College embarked upon an ambitious
programme to encourage scholarship and
promote academic discourse among staff and
students through some of these activities:
• Funding staff for research activities through
the College Research and Higher Degrees
Committee
• Running of seminars and postgraduate
colloquia
• Encouraging staff to attend research workshops
• Establishing partnerships for collaboration
in research with industry
• Increase of postgraduate numbers registered
with CAES and support of staff to obtain
master’s and doctoral qualifications
• Appointment of highly qualified staff
members
• Attainment of awards.
To achieve its research mandate, the College
is beginning to embark on extensive infrastructural
and human resources development.
semInARs, coLLoqUIA And
woRkshoPs
In the drive to encourage intellectual debates
and academic discourse several seminars were
organised for the College, most notably the
Prof. karunakaran seminar on agriculture in
India. This was followed by a successful postgraduate
colloquium and memorial lecture to
commemorate the late Prof. Godfrey
Humphrey, former Executive Dean of CAES.
The colloquium was entitled Expanding the
frontier of knowledge through research. The
title of the memorial lecture was The impact
of global warming on food security, human, environmental
health and safety and was presented
by Prof. JO Okonkwo of Tshwane University of
Technology, Pretoria.
Staff members were strongly encouraged to
attend research workshops in order to increase
and improve their knowledge base. Developing
researchers in particular benefited a great deal
since they were being better prepared to
complete their postgraduate studies and to
improve on their research output. A total of
37 staff members attended 28 workshops.
PARTneRshIPs And coLLAboRATIon
The School of life and Consumer Sciences
formed an integrated partnership with the
CSIR with the aim of achieving the appropriate
cutting edge bioscience research that will place
Unisa on an international footing. The University
approved the purchasing of a nuclear magnetic
resonance (nMR) 600 MHz spectrometer
that will benefit the specialised research
projects. This state-of-the-art nMR, valued at
close to R10 million, was commissioned and
will be utilised predominantly for drug development
or understanding the mechanisms of host
cell pathogen/toxin interactions.
Existing partnerships for collaborative research
with various stakeholders such as Rand Water
have been strengthened and agreements with
others such as the Agricultural Research
Council are on the verge of being signed.
APPoInTmenTs
In 2008 the College appointed four new staff
members at associate professor level, one
senior lecturer and one member with a
doctoral degree. These new appointments
and some outstanding ones are a deliberate
strategy to increase capacity to teach and to
conduct research, as well as to empower developing
researchers though mentoring by senior
staff.
ReseARch UnITs And PRojecTs
There are quite a number of ongoing research
projects such as the project for Applied
Behavioural Ecology and Ecological Research
Unit (ABEERU) located at loskop Dam and
the Rand Water projects that are yielding a
relatively substantial number of articles in
accredited journals as well as research reports.
ABEERU has established partnerships with
international universities and partners and
international students often receive training at
this unit.
ReseARch oUTPUT
There was a significant increase in the number
of publications compared to the previous years.
There were 24 articles in subsidy earning journals,
three articles not accredited, one accepted
and one non-subsidy earning book chapter.
Dr Maggi Linington
Executive Dean of CAES
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