New scheme to boost black academics’ research capacity

South Africa’s National Research Foundation (NRF) and the public benefit organisation FirstRand Foundation (FRF) have joined forces to create a sabbatical programme aimed at boosting research capacity among black African academics, and academics with disabilities.

“We are targeting the under-representation gap in academia,” said Nqobile Gumede, the NRF’s director of human and infrastructure capacity development. “The two groups are underrepresented. Those who receive the grants will be able to go on sabbatical and offload their teaching responsibilities. Post-doctoral students will get a two-year grant and pre-doctoral students a three-year grant.”

The NRF-FRF sabbatical grant is aimed helping black academics, particularly black African academics, and people with disabilities, employed in South Africa’s public universities to attain doctoral level qualifications and post-doctoral research training. Over a five-year period the programme will support 175 academics – 75 of them postgraduate and 100 post-doctoral.

According to the framework document, a “major barrier” for advancing research and postgraduate training at South African universities is the “low proportion of academic staff with the appropriate qualifications to drive postgraduate research and advance knowledge creation”. The most recent figures, from 2009, show that only a third of full-time permanent academic staff held doctoral degrees.

Another driver of the NRF-FRF partnership is the need for transformation in South African universities.

“Transformation continues to remain a critical imperative in post-apartheid South Africa, particularly considering the ethnic and gender composition of key sectors of society such as universities,” said NRF CEO Molapo Qhobela.

Of the 3,392 NRF-rated researchers in South Africa in 2015 only 26% were black, and 31% were female. The group of black NRF-rated researchers comprised 16% African, 3% coloured and 7% Indian academics and researchers. In addition, black African South African citizens made up only 6% of the NRF-rated researchers and only six of them had an NRF A-rating.

Why are the numbers so low? According to Gumede, the legacy of the apartheid era when education of black people was a low priority lingers on and the equalisation of educational opportunities ushered in by the end of apartheid in the mid-nineties hasn’t changed things overnight.

Gumede said it is estimated that it takes up to 20 years for emerging researchers to become established researchers. “So the historical legacy is still in play. Consequently, there are real challenges in terms of progress.”

The two main factors deterring full-time academic staff from completing doctoral degrees or undertaking postdoctoral research are lack of resources and high teaching loads. The latter is specifically addressed by the NRF-FRF sabbatical grant which also aims to promote the attainment of an NRF-rating by South African black African early-career academics, particularly black and female researchers, and persons with disabilities.

Two grants will be awarded annually to each university submitting applications and at least one of the two awards will be for a doctoral candidate. Given the transformation imperatives, 90% of the grants will support black Africans and 10% will support Indian and coloured academics and persons with disabilities. Fifty-five percent of all grants will be prioritised for female grant holders.

The grant has three budget categories: lecturer replacement costs to a maximum of ZAR200,000 (US$17,000); operational costs, including running expenses for materials, to a maximum of R100,000; and, for those applying for post-doctoral sabbatical grants only, an international mobility grant of R100,000.

Applicants with a disability may apply for an additional grant for assistive devices.

“These are devices needed to assist them in their research,” said Gumede. “They can apply for specific technology and each applicant will be assessed on a case-by-case basis. We have one million rand allocated over five years for this programme.”

Gumede said the NRF-FRF sabbatical grant initiative was not a response to the “revised model” for the Incentive Funding for Rated Researchers Programme announced last year to great consternation. This new model, which was effective from the beginning of the 2018 academic year, saw cuts, in some cases as high as 90%, to NRF grants aimed at incentivising “excellent research” in five rating categories.

“We were already in negotiations with FRF before that was implemented,” said Gumede, pointing out that the framework document is dated July 2017. “Our main aim is to support emerging researchers. It is an ongoing strategy.”

To that end NRF and FRF will equally contribute a rand for a rand over the five years, bringing the total investment in the programme to ZAR164.9 million (US$14 million). The first call for applications in August 2017 resulted in 43 fellows being awarded the grant for 2018.