Professor Adam Habib, the newly appointed deputy vice-chancellor: research, innovation and advancement at the University of Johannesburg (UJ), wants the institution to join the ranks of Stellenbosch University and the University of Cape Town as a top research producer.
He concedes that while UJ has been ”very successful and profitable at teaching” it needs to up its research output and spend more on research projects, the creation of research centres and on research chairs. Habib believes that research centres ”aggregate collective minds to solve problems, and this is important for the next generation of researchers who will learn on the job”. Research centres allow for the mentorship of young researchers, he says.
Habib, who takes up the position in September, is the executive director of the Human Sciences Research Council and an eminent scholar and social commentator. He will be allowed to continue with his own research in the social sciences.
He says that a ”great research culture is built on research that is required of one’s own society”.
Often South African researchers tend to focus on global rather than local research. His intention is for the university to build partnerships with companies such as Eskom and government departments to conduct research that will be meaningful.
He is concerned generally about the amount of research being produced by universities.
”For a long while the academy has been stagnating,” he says, explaining that researchers are getting older and there is a need for a new generation of researchers. He says that UJ recognises that researchers should to be incentivised and better paid.
”We need an incentive system that rewards productivity.”
He recognises an unfairness in the country’s research system in general, where researchers have to wait three years before a promotion. ”This means that even if you’re Albert Einstein you have to wait three years before you are promoted,” he says.
He elaborates: ”I’m often struck by how young researchers are undermined by the system where the older researchers under- perform” and are outshone by younger researchers who are resented and find it difficult to climb up the ranks.
Meanwhile, UJ is intent on boosting its research output, earlier this year vice- chancellor Professor Ihron Rensburg said the university will spend R50-million a year in the next three to four years on the creation of 150 academic posts.
This initiative will enhance UJ’s objective of achieving academic excellence and having a research focus. Pro-vice chancellor Professor Derek van der Merwe indicated that the university has a serious problem with its student-staff ratio: there are too many students per lecturer. ”There is a need to improve the ratio and make it possible for over-taught staff to engage in research, finish their PhDs and produce research papers,” he said.