Research is the basis of knowledge gained at university level. In the humanities this underpins everything we have managed to learn so far about social structures and values, human behaviour and the like. Its role in gaining insight into the why as well as the how to remains invaluable. At the University of KwaZulu-Natal alone, its Faculty of Humanities has 50 research centres — a clear indication that research activity is taken seriously.
“You don’t know what you don’t know until you measure it” is an often-quoted maxim in this field. And it defines research quite well.
The point of doing research is, after all, to do something no one has done before and in the process discover new truths, expand the existing knowledge base and encourage creativity.
The days when research took place on its own platform, in a vacuum, are long gone. Today’s research is market driven and funded from multiple sources, including the National Research Foundation (NRF), the department of trade and industry.
The NRF says research also promotes the development of top quality human resources and that this is taking place in “aggressively increasing numbers”. State-of-the-art research infrastructures already exist at all the universities, adding to the attainment of high quality knowledge in prioritised areas, which are responsive to national and continental developmental needs on all fronts from science to the humanities. Some of the research funded by the NRF in the humanities field includes topics such as “language change in a global and desegregating society”, which is certain to bring to the fore answers relating to social issues. In the cultural field, research is helping to promote an understanding of history, society and culture, while simultaneously providing a deeper appreciation of language, behaviour and religion in both national and global settings.
The NRF’s funding is directed largely towards academic research, developing high-level human resources, and supporting the existing research facilities nationally.
Its task is to advance research in all fields of the humanities, social and natural sciences, engineering and technology. This would also include indigenous knowledge. But its activities do not stop with funding. Much energy is also directed towards forging strategic partnerships locally and internationally, thereby extending resources and expanding South Africa’s research capabilities.
Many are joining hands across the research divide of the past: academics are sharing information, funders are promoting capacity development to unlock the full creative potential of the research community, strategic partnerships are being formed around the research base and in terms of making information available, even libraries are providing new methodologies to make research papers available. The maxim “the job of research is only half done if the results of that research cannot reach the widest audience” has found its mark. The University of Pretoria has taken this a step further in the establishment of its open scholarship and research reporting space linked to the annual research report — the first institution to have done so during 2008.