huge increase in research activity at unam

The University's Director of Research Prof. Isaac Mapaure has commented academic staff for a general increase in research activity at the country's premier tertiary education institution. He at the same time encouraged all staff members to publish at-least a paper per year.

This year the Research Office approved 22 proposals for research, compared to four in the 2010 academic year. "We received quite a high number of proposals, some of which we sent back for corrections. We never heard from some of those we asked to make adjustments to their proposals. Nonetheless, the quality of the proposals was very high. We are pushing for an element of capacity building in all research activities. These include mentoring as well as including young researchers and student assistants in research teams."

Though there has been a slight increase in publications and conference presentations, the cheerful Mapaure noted that UNAM researchers are now being invited to present papers in countries such as China, USA, Japan, and Turkey. In the past when they predominantly took part in research conferences in South Africa. "It shows that our papers are acceptable beyond southern Africa."

"If staff members continually publish an average of one paper annually, over a five to six year period we will have the bulk of our academic staff at senior lecturer level. It is doable, with all my additional duties I target at-least three papers a year and I've been meeting that."

While the Research office commented staff for various research done carried during the year, Mapaure remarked that from the 2009 data which his office has just analysed, only 23% of the publications constituted journal papers. "I therefore encourage staff to publish peer reviewed papers. Unlike with consultancy papers and reports, we can benchmark ourselves with them."

Meanwhile, the Research Office organized capacity building workshops at the Katima Mulilo, Hifikepunye Pohamba and Khomasdal campuses. The workshop focused on research proposal writing and writing for publications.

"The workshops were so well received, participants were really fired up. We are busy analyzing the data from the feedback forms, and we clearly see they want more workshops on data analysis and research methodology. "

The Research Office is working on a number of policies to guide research activities at the university, some of which include, the intellectual property policy, ethics policy, and a research policy. It currently has an approved research strategy in place.