The research capacity of all of South Africa's higher education institutions also was constrained by international isolation during the apartheid era. Now, there are enormous opportunities open to South African and international scholars for beneficial research collaboration. South Africa has singular wealth in such fields as paleontology, archaeology, and astronomy, according to Sheila Tyeku, Director for Research Capacity Development at CSD. In addition, Colin Bundy said that many researchers are excited to study the unique social experiments that are occurring in this new democracy. The inequality in South Africa mirrors within one society the economic and racial inequities of the global system, John Berry, an education consultant from Canada, pointed out, making South Africa an important place for international scholars to collaborate on issues of development.
The inequities in the research capacity between HAIs and HDIs are vast. Under apartheid ideology, the HDIs were not intended to be research and graduate institutions. Women, also, were largely excluded from gaining resources for advanced research, as documented in a study conducted by the Centre for Science Development (CSD), reported Tyeku.
"If South Africa is to have good universities for the new millennium - the knowledge millennium, we must now produce black and female PhDs in significant numbers and promote them into positions of power in all our universities. That must be our primary goal, in order to enable us to do anything else. The record to date is woeful. And it cannot be fixed properly without international academic linkages."
- Renfrew Christie, Dean of Research, University of the Western Cape
Higher education institutions must be transformed in order to promote a culture of research, said Renfrew Christie, Dean of Research at the University of the Western Cape (UWC). HDIs that have not had a research tradition must create new goals and incentives for their faculty members for conducting research. Christie reported that international linkages, particularly the long-term linkage with the University of Missouri, have provided financial resources and access to international perspectives that have made possible a significant increase in research at UWC.
Christie described the new policy on research adopted in 1998 by the UWC Senate which emphasized that research, teaching, and learning must be "married." More academics will obtain advanced degrees, a greater proportion of students will be studying at the post-graduate level, and undergraduates will be exposed to research methodology and will be learning from curricula which are revised based on continuing research.
There is an enormous need for redress in support of research by black and women scholars and at historically black institutions. One approach to addressing these problems is to promote research linkages between HDIs and better-resourced HAIs. Sheila Tyeku described one such program at CSD, the "team research awards." Research projects of a problem-solving nature are given preference, and projects must have a research training component, particularly participation by post-graduate students and newer researchers from HDIs. She reported that the team research awards granted to date included increased numbers of blacks, women, and team leadership at HDIs. But she also identified the problem of researchers from HDIs being appended to projects simply to make the projects eligible for a grant, but without significant benefits accruing to these HDIs.
Giving priority to research relevant to South Africa's social needs was affirmed repeatedly, not only in the research and graduate studies workshop, but elsewhere in the conference. Naledi Pandor pointed out that higher education institutions can contribute to social transformation by conducting research that will assist in implementing the RDP. Betty Overton, Director of Higher Education at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, concurred, saying that applied research is one of her agency's foci of support for higher education in South Africa.
Brian Figaji explained that research recently has been added to the mission of technikons. Technikons have begun to develop consortia among themselves as well as with universities in South Africa. While they are relatively new players in the arena of international partnerships, applied research is one fruitful focus for such cooperation.
Conferees frequently noted the importance in the research arena of linking with other institutions in the South, particularly elsewhere in Africa. South Africa's political leaders are emphasizing the need to strengthen South Africa's relations with the rest of the continent. Building linkages between South African and other African academics who are studying common problems contributes to this goal.
Sheila Tyeku said that CSD is giving priority to South-South linkages and is developing relationships with African higher education and research associations. CSD also is encouraging tripartite partnerships involving a South African institution, another institution in the South, and one institution from the North. Partnerships that increment the capacity of HDIs were particularly important. New electronic technologies have improved the means of communication among distant institutions, facilitating sustained partnerships.
Partnerships that brought South African academics to foreign institutions for post-graduate training received a critical review from several conference participants. Donald Ekong, former Secretary General of the Association of African Universities, told how African graduate students trained in U.S. and other foreign institutions often found teaching and research jobs in those countries and did not return to Africa, causing an enormous "brain drain" of some of Africa's best scholars. Often, higher education institutions in the North have been the ultimate beneficiaries of this approach to post-graduate training, to the detriment of institutions in Africa.
John Berry reported that, for this reason, the Canadian International Development Agency had virtually ended its bursary program for African students to obtain post-graduate training in Canada. In addition, bringing faculty members from African institutions for lengthy graduate programs at foreign universities is extremely expensive, both to support that scholar (and perhaps his or her family) for a number of years and to replace his or her teaching services at the home institution while he or she is gone. David Wiley, Director of the African Studies Center at MSU, said that, when South African students due pursue graduate training at foreign institutions, it is important that faculty members at those institutions give priority to providing adequate mentoring and establishing collegial relationships for the future.
Several participants proposed alternatives to lengthy graduate study abroad. In the research and graduate studies session, "sandwich programs" were advocated in which a faculty member from South Africa would attend a foreign institution for 12 to 15 months to take course work and establish relationships with relevant scholars, then return to South Africa to conduct dissertation research and do some classroom teaching, and finally travel to the foreign institution to defend his or her dissertation.
For addressing the needs of HDIs who have many young faculty members with heavy teaching loads who do not yet have advanced degrees, it was suggested that mature foreign graduate students be sent to take on some of their teaching load. The U.S. graduate student could teach and conduct dissertation research, while freeing time for a South African faculty member to undertake post-graduate study.
Strengthening post-graduate programs is a priority at several South African higher education institutions, said Colin Bundy. Partnerships with this focus avoid the high cost and potential brain drain resulting from training individual South African scholars abroad. In addition to greater efficiency, this approach allows for learning from foreign models while developing programs in South Africa that will address national realities and needs.
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