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UCT RESEARCH REPORT 2012
Department of
RESEARCH AND INNOVATION
Previously consisting of three separate but complementary
offices – the Research Office, Research Contracts and
Intellectual Property Services (RCIPS), and the Postgraduate
Centre and Funding Office (PGC&FO) – the Department of
Research and Innovation was re-organised in 2012, and now
comprises the Research Office and the PGC&FO under one
umbrella, and RCIPS. As part of the consolidation of activities
supporting the postgraduate and postdoctoral sectors at UCT,
we look forward to the appointment of Dr Nelleke Bak as the
Director for Postgraduate Studies in 2013.
DR MARILET
SIENAERT
Executive Director:
Research
T
hese interventions herald an important era in the history of the institution,
signalling the university’s commitment to establishing UCT as a world-class
higher-education institution.
Each of the offices that make up the department plays a key role in supporting UCT’s
research performance, from maximising access to bursaries, scholarships and grants to
developing capacity and increasing research impact, as well as assisting researchers to
enter into complex research contracts.
Research Office
The Research Office aims to further UCT’s vision of becoming a research-intensive
university with a global reach. Through engagement with relevant parties, it operates
as a pivot between academics and the external research environment, and helps to
align research interest and expertise with institutional priorities, as well as national
and international imperatives.
The scope of activities includes expanding access to external funding opportunities
and grants, developing and supporting proposals, administering a suite of internal
grants through a proposal-driven, committee-managed process, accrediting and
evaluating the university’s research groupings, tracking UCT’s research output and
impact, managing researcher development programmes, fostering a culture of
inter- and transdisciplinary research, forging new and strategic partnerships, and
implementing the strategic projects of the University Research Committee. The office
is currently organised into four units, with a fifth node envisaged for 2013, when
the Office of Research Integrity will be established, which will work collaboratively
with researchers and the relevant Senate ethics committees to promote responsible
conduct of research, and further enhance the service-oriented ethos of the office.
Key to research success is the funding with which to undertake research. In a national
funding landscape with rapidly diminishing resources, the Research Office invested in
a database of funding opportunities that provides access to all funding opportunities
for which researchers on the African continent are eligible. Research Professional Africa