Research support

Unisa makes a strong contribution to national research outputs and strives to maintain this into the future through comprehensive and well-planned research support that spans the research cycle and all stages of researchers’ careers.

DIRECTORATE RESEARCH SUPPORT

Growth opportunities for the Unisa research community

Access to funding opportunities, training, rating assistance and other research services is an integral part of the research support available to Unisa researchers and innovators.

During 2021, the Research Support Directorate assisted researchers to access external grant funding totalling R72 285 520 million, which was 11% higher than the external grant funding of R64 436 827 million in the previous year.

Approximately 86% of this funding took the form of National Research Foundation (NRF) Core Grants, while 1.4% comprised rating incentives and 12% consisted of other external funding from various public and private funders. (All these sources and the amounts associated with them are listed in Tables 1 and 2.)

In addition, the Directorate administered 13 different internal research support programmes aimed at enabling researchers to grow their careers and develop the university’s research capacity. These programmes represented a total investment of R36 million in 2021, funded through the Department of Higher Education and Training and from Unisa resources.

The programmes targeted researchers in all career phases, from emerging and developing researchers seeking to improve their qualifications or obtain NRF ratings, to established and leading researchers ready to benefit from research professorships and visiting professorships.

The internal research support programmes included recognition programmes for research excellence among women researchers, emerging researchers and leading researchers, and opportunities to conduct research in open and distance learning (ODL), among other things. For more details, refer to Tables 3 to 14.

Over and above this support, the Research Support Directorate provided ethics and integrity advice and assistance, offered NRF rating assistance and provided various research management services. 

The directorate also gathered research-related information from various internal and external sources and used it to provide the university’s management and research community with comprehensive, up-to-date and relevant information on research matters.

External research grants

External grants strengthen the research portfolio and support increases in the number of master’s and doctoral degrees among staff and students. In addition, these grants support research productivity and encourage networking and collaborations for research.

Table 1: Total value of external grants 2021

Table 2: External grants per category 2021

Research & Innovation Support Programmes (RISPs) 2017 – 2021

Unisa invests in its researchers through a range of innovative research support programmes, encompassing researchers on all levels, from emerging researchers through to established and leading researchers. The following tables highlight the nature of the support provided per programme and participant numbers, and show a race and gender breakdown of participants.

Academic Qualification Improvement Programme (AQIP)

In increasing the number of academics with doctoral degrees, the biggest challenge facing higher education institutions, including Unisa, is their inability to fund academic staff members’ study leave. AQIP is a response to this challenge. The main goal of the programme is to enable Unisa’s permanent academic staff to pursue doctoral degrees and, to a lesser extent, master’s degrees, on a full-time basis.

Table 3: Participants in AQIP, 2017-2021

*No call was made due to the programme not being renewed in 2017.

**No call was made in 2021 due to it being phased out from 2021.

Postdoctoral Fellowship Support Programme (PFSP)

Individuals who have recently completed their doctoral studies are often well positioned to undertake postdoctoral research, enabling them to further improve their understanding of a specialist subject, develop advanced research skills and produce high-level research outputs.

Unisa’s PFSP focuses on recruiting candidates holding doctorates that are not older than five years and were attained at universities other than Unisa. Available postdoctoral positions are advertised annually.

Table 4: PFSP, 2017-2021

Master’s and Doctoral Support Programme (MDSP)

The MDSP supports staff towards attaining master’s and doctoral degrees but differs from AQIP in several ways. Modelled on and designed to complement the National Research Foundation’s (NRF) Thuthuka programme, it provides support to staff members who do not qualify for NRF Thuthuka support because they are (a) working on a master’s degree, (b) above the age of 45 or (c) not South African citizens.

Table 5: Participants in MDSP, 2017-2021

Open Distance Learning Research Support Programme (ODL-RSP)

Teaching and Learning in the ODL environment is very different from that in contact higher education and it is important for Unisa to generate high-quality research in this field. The ODL-RSP provides support to ODL researchers so as to increase skills transfer, research quality and capacity building and encourage professional development in ODL research.  Ultimately, the programme aims to support permanent employees to produce accredited ODL research outputs and to mentor, support and develop junior researchers in the ODL-RSP group.

Table 6: Participants in the ODL-RSP, 2017-2021

*No successful applications

Visiting Researcher Support Programme (VRSP)

The Visiting Researcher Support Programme (VRSP) is a research excellence initiative aimed at raising the research profile of Unisa while increasing the existing research capacity in colleges. The programme provides funding for hosting a visiting researcher from an institution outside Unisa for a period of up to one year (prior to mid-2018, the period could extend up to two years).

Table 7: Participants in the VRP, 2017-2021

*  Changed mid-2018 to a maximum of a 12-month cycle per visit

** Due to the international nature of the programme and the Covid-19 travel restrictions, no call for applications was made.

***No new calls were made during 2020 or 2021 due to Covid-19 lockdowns and international travel restrictions during both years.

Research Professors Programme (RPP)

Unisa introduced the academic rank of research professor to serve as a mechanism for, among other things, increasing dedicated research and innovation participation, increasing specialised expertise and improving research outputs. Research professors are appointed in three-year cycles. The table below indicates participation in the RPP from 2017 to 2021.

Table 8: Participants in the RPP, 2017-2021

VisionKeepers Programme (VKP)

As the university currently faces the major challenge of attracting, developing and retaining young researchers, the goal of the VKP is to support research excellence by providing funding to emerging researchers to pursue research, produce high-quality, accredited research publications and increase the success rate of NRF rating and external grant applications by working with experienced research mentors from institutions other than Unisa.

Table 9: Participants in the VKP, 2017-2021

* Due to the international nature of the programme and the Covid-19 travel restrictions, no call for applications was made.

**No new calls were made during 2020 or 2021 due to Covid-19 lockdowns and international travel restrictions during both years.

Women in Research (WiR) Support Programme

Unisa is committed to achieving gender equality in research by increasing the number of permanent female employees producing quality research publications and becoming NRF-rated researchers. The WiR programme provides support to permanent female researchers with a view to producing accredited research outputs and mentoring, supporting and developing junior researchers.

Funding is provided for direct research costs for a maximum of 36 consecutive months, with funding allocated annually, based on satisfactory progress. Preference is given to researchers from designated groups. However, researchers from non-designated groups are not excluded.

Table 10: Participants in the WiR Support Programme, 2017-2021

Prizes for Excellence in Research (from 2021, the Prizes were renamed Awards)

Principal’s/Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Research

The Principal’s Prize for Excellence in Research is the second-highest prize for research at Unisa after the Chancellor’s Prize for Excellence in Research. Both accolades are aimed at acknowledging research excellence and research performance.

The Principal’s Award is targeted at young and developing researchers (not older than 35 years) or groups who have achieved academic research excellence of the highest quality as published in the preceding two years. Traditionally awarded bi-annually, it alternates with the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Research, which is targeted at proven researchers.

 From 2021 onwards, the Chancellor’s Award and Principal’s Award will both be awarded every year and not on alternating years as in the past.

Table 11: Participants in the Chancellor’s Award (Ch) and the Principal’s Award (Pr), 2017-2021

Table 12: Participants in the WiR(L), 2017-2021

Women in Research: Emerging Researcher Prize

The Women in Research: Emerging Researcher Prize is presented to women staff members who have, in the past five years, advanced their careers by acquiring a doctorate and producing research outputs.

Table 13: Participants in the WiR(E), 2017-2021

Women in Research: Youngest Female Doctoral Graduate Prize

The Youngest Female Doctoral Graduate Prize is presented to the youngest woman staff member to attain a doctoral degree during the previous year’s graduation ceremony.

The award reflects the importance of increasing the number of women doctoral graduates.

Table 14: Youngest female doctoral graduates, 2017-2021

Innovation Support Programmes

Through the Directorate: Innovation, Technology Transfer and Commercialisation (DITTC), Unisa has three support programmes specifically designed to encourage staff and students to conceptualise and ultimately commercialise innovative solutions to societal challenges.

Innovation Support Programme (ISP) for staff

The ISP is open to all Unisa staff and provides seed funding to those whose projects are selected. Projects submitted for consideration are evaluated according to a number of criteria, including innovation, feasibility, sustainability and potential impact. Preferred projects are those offering solutions to some of the intractable challenges that our society faces, as outlined in the Sustainable Development Goals and in support of the National Development Plan.    

Table 15: Participation in the ISP, 2017-2021

*Note: Figures provided by the Directorate: Innovation, Technology Transfer and Commercialisation

Student Innovation Challenge  

 Through the Innovation Challenge, Unisa aims to stimulate the development of high-quality student projects that seek to provide innovative solutions to challenges that society faces. After pitching their ideas in a pre-selection phase, students go through to the next phase, where they receive innovation training (known as Boot Camp Ignite) and take part in a final pitching session. Those whose projects are selected then receive funding and pre-incubation support, including the opportunity to develop and pilot their ideas.

Table 16: Student Innovation Challenge Programme 2017-2021

*Note: Figures provided by the Directorate: Innovation, Technology Transfer and Commercialisation

Table 17: Tshwane Inter-University Innovation Challenge 2020-2021

RESEARCH INTEGRITY OFFICE

Leadership in research ethics and integrity

Globally, regulatory change in the research ethics and integrity field has been happening thick and fast in recent years, compelling higher education institutions to respond swiftly and effectively to new regulatory requirements. This has been a focal point for Unisa.

An additional factor relevant to African universities in particular, is the necessity to expose traditionally western approaches to scrutiny through the lens of Africanisation and decolonisation. In 2021, the Research Integrity Office (RIO) at Unisa was instrumental in ensuring that Unisa paid close attention to this.

Adapting to regulatory change

Against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic, the National Health Research Ethics Council developed Guideline 3.4.1 for Major Incidents and Research, including Public health Emergencies. Unisa was an important stakeholder in providing input for this national initiative, specifically on eConsent.

Several other steps were taken to align Unisa practices with developing trends and legislation in ethics and integrity, especially in terms of online research and the implementation of regulations stemming from the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA).

Accordingly, the RIO adapted its research ethics and integrity training programmes and facilitated sessions on POPIA for researchers and members of ethics review committees. These sessions explained why POPIA is important from a research perspective and what constitutes personal information, as well as when and how POPIA must be applied to protect personal information collected as part of research.

In October 2021, in another step that will enhance the university’s ability to promote research ethics and integrity, Unisa began implementing the institution-wide Infonetica online research ethics management system.

Ethics clearance applications up 26%

The RIO again contributed to managing the ethics clearance processes of Unisa’s Ethics Review Committees.

In 2021, these committees processed a total of 1 991 applications for ethics clearance, 26% more than the 1 580 applications processed in the previous year. The increase is indicative of the easing of lockdown regulations and the challenges those regulations posed for some of the research activities of the university community.

Of the applications processed during 2021, 86% were approved, 12% were referred back and 2% were still pending at the time of reporting. The College of Education received the highest number of applications (19%), followed by the College of Human Sciences (18%) and the College of Science, Engineering and Technology (14%).

Research and integrity training exceeds targets

The uptake of research ethics and integrity training by the end of 2021 was exceptional, demonstrating that Unisa employees are eager to expand their knowledge, skills and competence in research ethics and integrity. A total of 1 447 people engaged in RIO training, including external training and awareness-raising events. Of this number, 642 were Unisa employees who completed level one and level two training sessions counting towards the target. Hence, the RIO had exceeded its target by 61% by the end of 2021.

A trends analysis for the past five years indicates significant growth in the demand for research ethics and integrity training at institutional level since 2017. In that first year, 407 people underwent training, rising to 912 in 2018, decreasing slightly to 903 in 2019 and then surging to 1 011 in 2020 and 1 447 in 2021. That represents an increase of 255% over the five-year period.

Training for other universities

External higher education institutions recognise Unisa’s RIO as a leader in providing research ethics training. During 2021, the RIO coordinated and facilitated training for the University of Fort Hare, South African College of Applied Psychology (SACAP), Walter Sisulu University and Sol Plaatje University. These workshops generated third-stream income for the Directorate: Research Support.

First of its kind in Africa

In another highlight for ethics and integrity training in 2021, the RIO launched the Research Integrity Ambassadors programme. The first of its kind in Africa, this programme outlines the responsibilities and principles to which researchers must adhere and provides practical advice on how to handle complex ethical issues.

The training provided meets the highest international standards. Both Dr Retha Visagie and Mrs Tanya Coetzee of the RIO are internationally trained Vir2ue Train the Trainers under the auspices of the Embassy of Good Science. The Vir2ue project, funded by the European Commission, has trained 400 trainers across Europe and Africa. Only three of these trainers are listed in South Africa.

Special project in the SADC

Members of the RIO team were instrumental in the development of Research Ethics and Integrity Guidelines and a Toolkit for the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

The project was an outcome of the Northern Region Community of Practice for research ethics and integrity, established under the auspices of the Southern African Research Management Association (SARIMA). Dr Visagie is the co-chairperson of this body and Mrs Tanya Coetzee is the secretary.

Africanisation and decolonisation of research ethics

In contributing to various Unisa and external research ethics committees and bodies, the RIO has observed that the research ethics governance systems which influence ethical decision-making still tend to be entrenched in euro-centric and global north ethics perspectives and practices. This underscores the need for a concerted effort to encourage debate and awareness about the need to incorporate principles compatible with Africanisation and decolonisation into the ethics frameworks of universities.

In 2021, the RIO took the lead in establishing an inter-college task team on the Africanisation and decolonisation of research management and administration.

The task team comprises Prof Puleng Segalo and Dr Vuyolwethu Seti of the College of Human Sciences, Prof Moeketsi Letseka of the College of Education, Mr Maanda Ndhlovu, Dr Sibongile Tekana of the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, Prof Sarah-Jane Johnston of the College of Science, Engineering and Technology, Dr Viola Sambo of the College of Economic and Management Sciences, Mr Harry Bopape of Research Support and Dr Retha Visagie, Mrs Tanya Coetzee and Ms Thando Mdaka of the RIO.

The task team met twice during the year, first in July and then in October, to plan their programme of action, which will unfold in earnest in 2022.

Discussions highlight indigenisation of research ethics

Meanwhile, in collaboration with the Vice-Principal: Research, Postgraduate Studies, Innovation and Commercialisation, the RIO hosted two “Asikulume” Roundtable discussions on the indigenisation of research ethics. The overarching strategy of these discussions is to harmonise Eurocentric and Afrocentric research ethics from an Afro-global perspective.

The first discussion was a conversation about research ethics in Africa and attracted 109 participants, including 74 Unisa employees, 25 external participants and 10 postgraduate students. The second discussion focused on how the decolonisation of research ethics should be about accumulating knowledge rather than eradicating it. Some 105 participants attended, comprising 68 Unisa employees, 31 external participants and six postgraduate students.

Research ethics governance

Unisa follows a decentralised research ethics governance model, comprising 10 research ethics committees in total. Of these, two are Health Research Ethics Review Committees registered with the National Health Research Ethics Council (NHREC), one for the College of Human Sciences (CHS-CRERC) and one for the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences (CAES-HREC). There is one Animal Research Ethics Review Committee (CAES-AREC), which is in the process of registering with the NHREC, and seven other independent College Research Ethics Review Committees.

The Professional Research Ethics Workgroup deals with applications from professional and support categories of employees. The Research Ethics Committees/Ethics Review Committees provide quarterly reports to the Unisa Research Ethics Review Committee.

The RIO provides administrative assistance to two sub-committees of the  Senate Research, Innovation, Postgraduate Degree and Commercialisation Committee (SRIPCC), the Unisa Research Ethics and Review Committee (URERC) and the Research Permissions Committee (RPC). Diversity of views and expertise is essential for a well-functioning Research Ethics Committee, and the URERC has made great strides since 2016 to transform the Committee's composition to promote diversity. At present, the gender composition is almost equal, with 10 females and 11 males. Racial diversity is demonstrated by seven African, nine White, one Coloured and four Indian members.

The RIO wishes to express its appreciation to the members of the URERC for the guidance and leadership provided on matters affecting research ethics and integrity at the university. Through the expertise of its membership, URERC plays an essential role in enabling Unisa to generate the highest attainable quality of scientific and ethical research.

URERC membership in 2021

INNOVATION, TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER AND COMMERCIALISATION

Generating Africa-centred solutions with global relevance

Unisa is beginning to make headway in converting its wealth of research into innovative yet practical African solutions with societal and commercial value. During 2021, certain software-related innovations generated by our researchers made their way into the marketplace, having successfully completed the innovation and commercialisation cycle.

In this regard, a milestone of 2021 was the signing of the first licensing agreement for the use of Unisa IP, generating R104 000 in licensing income for the university in the first year.  Other highlights include the filing of 41 patent applications – 585% more than in the previous year – and the granting of 18 patents in local and international jurisdictions.

Since filing its first patent application in 2013 and being granted its first patent in 2015, Unisa’s patent portfolio has grown significantly.  By the end of 2021, the total number of Unisa patents had grown to 42.

The IP portfolio reflects the diversity of Unisa’s research enterprise and its emerging strengths in health-related research areas including drug discovery. The portfolio includes drug development patent applications that are in the international phase of prosecution.

As other innovations move further along the pipeline, more products and services developed with Unisa intellectual property (IP) will be readied for possible commercialisation through support with disclosures, pre-incubation, technology transfer, seed-funding opportunities and patenting, as well as licensing agreements and external partnerships.

Meanwhile, at the entry point of the innovation and commercialisation cycle, where staff and students are encouraged to become aware of and explore possibilities for innovation and entrepreneurship, we continue to offer a range of exciting training programmes, workshops and seminars. In 2021, more than 500 Unisa staff and students attended such training, which included IP and innovation masterclasses, business planning and product development and innovation “boot camps”.

As participants started exploring ways to develop their nascent ideas into potentially marketable products and services, they received access to opportunities such as the Innovation Support Programme for staff, the innovation Challenge, a support programme for students, and the Unisa Pre-Incubation Programme, an accelerator programme that provides support for the establishment of start-ups with good levels of investor readiness.

The university has reason to be proud of the strides being taken towards innovation and commercialisation.

Disclosures and patents

Researchers at Unisa lodged 13 IP disclosures with the DITCC in 2021, which was above the target of 10. This compares with the 22 disclosures made in the previous year.

For the first time, the College of Agriculture and Environmental Science (CAES) contributed the most disclosures, 38%, followed by the College of Science, Engineering and Technology, at 31%. Each of the other colleges contributed between 7% and 8%.

Africa-centred technologies and applications with global relevance characterised most of the 41 patents applications filed in 2021. They include a system for converting plastic waste into power, for which patent applications have been filed in seven countries or regions, namely ARIPO, Brazil, China, Europe, India, South Africa and the United States. Two other technologies with multiple filings are membranes for membrane distillation desalination and a chitosan-based biodegradable and transparent polymer composite film exhibiting enhanced resistive switching behaviour.

Table 18 below lists the jurisdictions in which patents were granted in 2021 and the number of patents per jurisdiction, while table 19 shows the distribution of patent applications.

Table 18: Jurisdictions where patents were granted in 2021

Table 19: Distribution of patent applications per jurisdiction

Patent prosecution, which refers to the interaction between patent applicants, their representatives and patent offices, was another important aspect of the DITCC’s work in 2021. The directorate handled 180 prosecution-related matters.

Seed funding and licence agreements

At the end of the year, 11 Unisa projects were receiving seed funding support totalling R3,366 million from the Technology Innovation Agency (TIA). This included five new applications approved during 2021.

Having concluded its first licensing agreement on 11 October 2021, Unisa began negotiating a master licence agreement with the licensee. The agreement covers the use of Professor Marcia Mkansi’s Research Methods Index. Mkansi, who is from the Department of Operations Management in the College of Economic and Management Sciences, is also the inventor behind two other software solutions that are now on the market. These are Dilivari and Green, which are both available on app stores.

Innovation Challenge for students

For Unisa students interested in entrepreneurship, the annual Innovation Challenge is a major drawcard. The Challenge is designed to strengthen students’ ability to apply innovative problem-solving techniques and increase the number of high-quality student innovation projects. The winners receive proof-of-concept funding for their projects.

The 2021 Innovation Challenge attracted 100 applicants, compared to 88 in 2020. Of these, 40 projects were selected to proceed to the next stage, called Bootcamp Ignite. After using the skills acquired at the bootcamp, the participants revised and submitted their project proposals.

In all, 18 projects proceeded to the final stage of the Innovation Challenge and eight were selected as winners, as shown in table 20.

Table 21: Winners of the 2021 Innovation Challenge

Unisa’s Pre-Incubator accelerator programme

Unisa established its accelerator to support staff and students with innovative ideas, and who wish to commercialise their innovative ideas.  In 2021, the programme supported 13 start-ups emanating from projects previously funded by the Unisa Innovation Challenge and the Tshwane Inter-University Innovation Challenge.

The start-ups were put through a structured curriculum to assist them in their formative stages. The curriculum included value proposition development, financial management, project management and product development, investor readiness and pitching.

Training and awareness interventions

Six types of entrepreneurship and innovation training were available to staff and students under the banner of the InnovationSense programme in 2021.

These consisted of three different masterclasses (on IP, commercialisation and innovation), the seven-week Business Model Canvas training, the Innovation in Action lecture series and Blue Oceans training.

The masterclass series attracted a total of 303 staff and students and covered legal and other issues around IP and commercialisation, with speakers from the DITCC and various law firms specialising in intellectual property.

For the Business Model Canvas training, four sessions were presented during the year, with 92 staff and students attending.

Top African entrepreneurs and innovators presented the five Innovation in Action lectures held across 2021, including Ms Milisa Mabinza, who launched the first black woman-owned micro venture capital fund, and Ms Pauline Koebel, a Rwandan-born international development consultant.

Blue Oceans Corner

Unisa continued its involvement in the Blue Oceans Corner, which originated in France and was launched in South Africa in 2020.  The ethos behind the Blue Oceans methodology is to assist enterprises to derive value from new markets, thereby contributing to their sustainability.

Partners included the University of Pretoria, Tshwane University of Technology, Durban University of Technology, Technology Innovations Agency, Tshimologong, Baobab Incubator, City of Tshwane, City of Johannesburg, City of Durban, and the French Embassy. 

Training of Blue Oceans facilitators and entrepreneurs commenced in November 2020 and continued in 2021. This culminated in a pitching session where seven projects were selected to proceed to the international phase of the competition.  Out of the six projects selected nationally, three were by Unisa students.  

The Blue Oceans international awards, which will include teams from France, Senegal, the USA, India and South Africa, is scheduled for later in 2022.

UNISA PRESS

Resilience in response to change

Unisa Press strives continuously to pursue innovative and cost-effective ways to adapt to the changes within higher education and the publishing industry.

One of the most significant shifts has been the move from the traditional printing of hard copies of books and journals to automation and digitisation. Our journals section has been in the vanguard in digitising the content of journals and we have made a start in printing books on demand and in eBooks format on many online book platforms. 

The rigorously peer-reviewed books and journals that emanate from UNISA Press are well known in the academic and scholarly community and now, in addition,  we are using the open-peer review system in open-access preprint publishing.  

Key achievements of 2021

•           The UnisaRxiv preprint server played an important role in showcasing papers presented at the 2021 Unisa Research and Innovation Open Distance and eLearning Virtual Conference. The 23 papers delivered at the conference are available as preprints in a special collection on the ScienceOpen platform. Papers in the collection have been downloaded 5500 times and are still being read and downloaded daily.

•           The year 2021 marks the start of the distribution of digitisation book content. Towards the end of the year, Unisa Press explored opportunities in new technology for its marketing and distribution channels and in responding to the calls for more open-access content.

Journals turn a new page

Unisa Press welcomed two new journals to its stable in 2021.

Social and Health Sciences (formerly African Safety Promotion: A Journal of Injury and Violence Prevention) is a multidisciplinary forum for critical discussion and debate among scholars, practitioners, activists, students and policy-makers whose interests and work intersect with the social and health sciences. 

Southern African Journal of Security publishes peer-reviewed articles and papers that report on and analyse the latest research and innovation in the field of security studies. It seeks to address broader societal issues of importance to law, safety and security of citizens and criminal justice-related topics.

Unisa Press journals are published on the open journals systems platform unisapresspjournals.co.za. The platform shows a sustained increase in downloads (see Figure 1).

Our journals are also available on the Sabinet platform, journals.co.za, and the 19 journals co-published with Taylor and Francis  are available on TandFonline.com.

Unisa Press journals cover a variety of disciplines, including humanities, developmental studies, decolonisation, African philosophies and renaissance, education, economics and open and distance learning (ODL). 

Figure 1: Downloads of Unisa Press journals

Peer-reviewed books deal with sustainable development themes

Nine scholarly works were published in 2021, covering a range of contemporary themes dealing with sustainable and development principles, particularly the environment, social matters and economics. All published books are double-blind peer-reviewed for academic excellence.

Table 22: Books published in 2021

Hiddingh-Currie award for 2021

Arctic University of Norway academic Siv Øvernes was the winner of the 2021 Hiddingh-Currie award, a prestigious annual research prize for authors of published works within Unisa Press.

Øvernes, an associate professor in the Department of Child Welfare and Social Work, based the book on the findings of an ethnographic study that demystified the misconception that the Khoisan are Coloureds who live in remote bush environment. Street Khoisan reflects how the Khoisan have survived the onslaught of colonisation, assimilation and acculturation, and contrasts Khoisan history with that of Norway’s Sámi community, who suffered more than a century of state-funded forced assimilation policies and marginalisation.

COLLEGE OF GRADUATE STUDIES

Postgraduate excellence mainstreamed

The College of Graduate Studies (CGS) is the strategic cornerstone of Unisa’s response to the national and global imperative to increase the number of master’s and doctorally prepared graduates. As a training ground for high-calibre researchers and a leader of excellence in postgraduate studies and research, the college builds capacity to ensure that this excellence is mainstreamed across all other colleges at Unisa. 

The college’s various units champion research capacity development across wide-ranging areas of competence and, to this end, it operates as a hub to facilitate institutional support to postgraduate students and staff members. The approximately 15 000 master’s and doctoral candidates for whom the college facilitates training represent more than a third of the research potential in South African universities.

In addition, CGS deals with the applications, admissions and registrations of about 45 000 students registered for postgraduate qualifications, namely postgraduate diplomas and honours, master's and doctoral degrees. It also coordinates the assessment of master’s and doctoral dissertations and theses.

These contributions have been instrumental in the consistently high number of master’s and doctoral students who graduate from Unisa each year, as the table below shows.

Table X

* Note – The figures for 2021 are preliminary.

In addition to its work with postgraduate students, the College of Graduate Studies hosts two prestigious chairs. These are the National Research Foundation/Department of Science and Innovation South African Research Chair in Social Policy and the UNESCO/Unisa Africa Chair in Nanosciences and Nanotechnology.

Other highlights of 2021

• The college, through its Accelerated Online Postgraduate Support Programme, provided intensive training to more than 27 000 honours, master’s and doctoral students on research competencies such as proposal development, thesis and dissertation development, grantsmanship and writing for publication.
• The Accelerated Online programme launched the WhatsApp Open Online Course (WOOC) for postgraduate students as part of a wider programme that supports all Unisa postgraduate students to develop their research and self-marketing skills.
• The Master’s and Doctoral Students’ Supervision and Monitoring Dashboard was launched as an online interactive tool to monitor the progress of M&D students. The dashboard allows M&D students to interact with their supervisors, upload their research schedules and research activities and receive feedback on their research activities via the platform.
• The college launched and delivered the ground-breaking postgraduate supervisor capacity development programme, which provided intensive training in supervision to the university’s 2 300 supervisors.  
• CGS oversaw Unisa’s participation in the national Three-Minute Thesis Competition (3MT). More than 900 universities around the world participate in this competition and, in Unisa’s debut year, its doctoral candidate, Ms Nonkanyiso Pamella Shabalala, from the College of Education, was awarded the  first runner-up prize at the competition, held on 29 October 2021.
• In September 2021, the college was charged with leading the university’s drive to optimise its catalytic niche areas and continues to assume leadership in this and other critical research priorities of the university such as the Internationalisation drive.

LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SERVICES

Uninterrupted access to scholarly resources

As a key stakeholder in the scholarly communication ecosystem, Library and Information Services (LIS) plays a significant role in preserving and disseminating information to the research community.

In the year under review, the role of the Unisa Library changed and evolved to ensure uninterrupted access to its valuable resources and services despite challenges posed by the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. The university has also made provision for the Library’s continued expansion and maintenance of high-level information, research services and information resources.

In collaboration with researchers, publishers, partners and staff, the Library is contributing toward achieving the strategies of the university and the Research, Postgraduate Studies, Innovation and Commercialisation Portfolio. Specifically, it has focused on accelerating Unisa’s shift towards becoming a leading African open distance and e-learning institution. In this context, its intent is to strengthen the link between library resources and academic programmes for enhanced research, teaching and learning, and community engagement.

Collections show steady growth

As the largest academic library in Africa, the Unisa Library has more than 2,47 million items in stock. These are spread across its main library in Pretoria and 15 branch libraries, all of them in South Africa except for the library in Ethiopia. Overall, the number of items in stock grew from 2 454 617 in the previous year to 2 473 569 in December 2021.

Although still small, the Decolonised/African Collection is growing. During the year, more than 1 000 new titles were added, bringing the total number to 3 230.

In step with digital technology trends, e-resources now make up a sizeable portion of the total library collection. e-Resources comprise e-journals and e-books in subscription databases, e-books, open access content and specialised digital collections, notably the Unisa Library Digital Collections and the Thabo Mbeki Presidential Library (TMPL) Collections.

Of these e-resources, the largest category in 2021 was access and subscription e-journals, totalling 407 830, followed by e-books in subscription databases, at 343 484. Next was gold open access content, which more than doubled from 42 679 items in the previous year to 343 484 in December 2021.

The Institutional Repository, UnisaIR, also showed good growth, rising from 591 items in 2020 to 1 338 at the end of 2021.

Table 23 below summarises the status of the various library collections in 2020 and 2021.

Table 23: Print and other media collections

e-Resources, including UnisaIR

Library use trends

Since the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020, there has been a surge in the use of the Unisa Library’s digital resources. At the same time, and as was to be expected considering the campus closures that characterised the pandemic period, use of items from the Print Collection was muted.

As far as e-resources were concerned, Library users conducted over 2 million searches, 2,1 million full-text downloads and used more than 1,7 million full-text articles during 2021. Meanwhile, usage of the digital collections almost doubled from 25 927 in the previous year to 43 623 during the year under review.

Table 24 provides an overview of e-resources and print collection user activity during 2020 and 2021.

Table 24: Library usage trends 2021

International digital footprint

In 2021, users in 133 countries accessed the Unisa Library’s Digital Collections.

The visualisation below shows the number of views in the top 10 countries where users viewed Unisa datasets in 17 851 separate sessions during the year.

Figure 2:Unisa database views in 10 countries

Training and engagement boost digital access and literacy

The Unisa Library conducted 10 032 training sessions for users in 2021, almost double the number in the previous year. Table 25 below gives a summary of training undertaken.

Table 25: Training for library users 2021

In addition, the Library engaged extensively with its user base through social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. This engagement is shown in table 26 below.

Table 26: Social media activity

Productive, service-oriented staff

It is to the credit of LIS’s 191 staff members that high service levels were  maintained throughout 2021, despite the disruptions emanating from the pandemic. Table 27 provides an overview of the staff corps during the year, while Figure 3 gives a breakdown of the employment equity profile in LIS.

Table 27: Staff profile 2021

Figure 3:  Employment equity profile

Research profiles

In a world where e-visibility counts, researchers and their institutions gain significant exposure by building accurate and unique global public research profiles and managing personal profile information on the web. The LIS, through its Personal Librarians, proactively identifies and assists members of the Unisa research community to create relevant research profiles. This includes ensuring that all the relevant research publications of the researcher concerned are linked to the profiles created, as well as enabling the researcher’s H-index to be calculated automatically, eliminating the need for citation searching.

In addition, the Personal Librarians provide extensive support to researchers applying for National Research Foundation (NRF) ratings.

Click here for full details of the support available to Unisa researchers for the purposes of e-visibility and NRF rating applications[CR1] [CR2] .

INTERNATIONALISATION AND COLLABORATION

Contributing to collaboration across borders

Building, expanding and encouraging research collaboration between South African and international scientists and scholars is a priority for South Africa, as outlined in the National System of Innovation, the National Internationalisation Strategy Framework and the Collaboration Framework for the higher education sector, among others.

These systems and frameworks enjoin South African higher education institutions to form bilateral and multilateral collaborative partnerships with academic organisations globally, with a view to advancing knowledge production, innovation and development.

Unisa contributes to this through its Internationalisation Strategy, which tasks several organisational units within the university to cooperate in pursuing and maintaining international collaborations and partnerships. Within the Research, Postgraduate Studies, Innovation and Commercialisation Portfolio, the Internationalisation Office of the Directorate: Research Support is responsible for drafting, implementing and administering the university’s new Research & Innovation Internationalisation and Collaborations Framework and Implementation Plan.

The draft R&I International and Collaborations Framework is still under discussion but, once finalised, will be implemented with a view to improving UNISA’s strategic positioning and enabling it to benefit from current and future bilateral and multilateral international cooperations and partnerships.

A key internationalisation objective is to enable the broader dissemination of African knowledge for global impact. Thus, collaborations with African partners are a vital part of the university’s internationalisation efforts.

In positioning UNISA optimally in the African and global arena, it will be important to ensure proper coordination and alignment among all colleges and other units with a contribution to make to the university’s Internationalisation Strategy. The Internationalisation Office strives to play a coordinating role, such as by facilitating events that bring relevant internal role-players together to identify challenges and opportunities and exchange ideas to raise UNISA’s research profile international, particularly its open and distance learning (ODL) research mandate.

Furthermore, the Internationalisation Office will be responsible for monitoring and reports on the institution’s progress against the goals to be set for internationalisation and collaboration, using the standard procedures stipulated by the Department of Higher Education and Training’s International Strategy.

Goals and targets for internationalisation and collaboration

Three sets of indicators are to be used to measure institutional performance against the internationalisation goals, namely inputs, process indicators and outputs/artefacts.

Input indicators refer to human resources (academic staff and students) involved in internationalisation activities and internal and external funding resources used.

Process indicators refer to academic activities such as joint supervision of students, joint international seminars and conferences hosted, and international conferences attended, among others. These indicators also refer to international student exchange programmes and the offering of joint postgraduate programmes, as well as academic citizenship activities, such as Unisa employees serving as editors or reviewers of international journals or conferences, as examiners for international dissertations and theses, or Unisa employees serving on international scholarly society boards or receiving fellowships to international societies.

Output indicators refer to research outputs produced in conjunction with international collaborators, such as co-authored publications, patents granted outside South Africa and joint postgraduate degrees awarded, among others.

Once the R&I International and Collaborations Framework has been finalised and the targets and indicators are implemented, it will be possible to gain an institution-wide view of the internationalisation progress of the university as a whole.

THABO MBEKI AFRICAN SCHOOL OF PUBLIC AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

Training students for the political, economic, social and cultural renewal of Africa

The Thabo Mbeki African School of Public and International Affairs (TM-School) was established after the University Council supported its formation in November 2019. The TM-School works closely with the Thabo Mbeki Foundation.

Established after the merging of the Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute with the Institute for African Renaissance, Institute for Dispute Resolution in Africa and School of Governance, the TM-School has grown through the able leadership of the Executive Dean, Professor Sibusiso Vil-Nkomo.

The School now has a full staff complement for its major niche areas. These are the Study of Government Affairs; Simulation and Futuristics Studies; Public Leadership Studies; Peace and Development Studies; Security and Intelligence Studies; Study of Urban and Rural Affairs; Citizenship Studies and Study of Sustainable Livelihoods and Resource Management.

The Executive Dean is supported by four management pillars in the Academic Research and Knowledge Hub; Academic Programmes; Academic Support and Student Affairs, and Corporate Services.

The TM-School boasts a strong Advisory Board under the chairship of Professor Toyin Falola from the University of Texas. Other Board members include Ms Sharla Chetty (Deputy Chair of the Board), Prof Puleng LenkaBula, Prof Mahmood Mamdani, Prof Funmi Olonisakin, Prof Muna Ndulo, Ms Zeenat Adam, Dr Morley Nkosi and Ambassador Nozipho January-Bardill.

Annually, the TM-School coordinates conversations with the patron, former president Thabo Mbeki, who engages students and the public on a number of issues.

The School is also responsible for coordinating the Thabo Mbeki Africa Day Lecture. The 11th edition of this lecture was presented by Prof Fumni Olonisakin, Professor of Security, Leadership and Development at King’s College in London, United Kingdom. She spoke under the theme, “Retrospecting to prospect: Que Vadis Africa?”

One of the School’s flagship programmes is on elections in South Africa, as part of a crucial project on election education in Southern Africa. The TM-School also boasts two researchers with C ratings from the National Research Foundation (NRF).

Finally, the School’s anchor project and niche area from the 10 catalytic research and engaged scholarship projects is student support and co-curricular activities. The TM-School is proud to be registering students for several postgraduate programmes as from 2023.

Whilst the major purpose of the School is to train its students for the political, economic, social and cultural renewal of Africa, it wants to be a global player and lead in scholarship, teaching and research.   

PROFESSIONAL RESEARCH GROUP

Research development for professionals and support staff

Researchers from the ranks of the university’s professional and support staff made significant contributions to Unisa’s research outputs in 2021.

Through the Professional Research Committee (PRC), permanent professional/support employees at Unisa have the opportunity to improve their research capacity, skills and qualifications at the highest levels by earning a master’s or doctoral degree and publishing in accredited journals. 

The PRC is responsible for the management and oversight of research support programmes that enable professional/support employees who are part of the Professional Research Group (PRG) to become recognised researchers.

Various forms of support are available, including research development leave (RDL),  which offers employees sufficient space and time to complete a research-based master’s or doctoral degree.

The PRC also offers skills development interventions such as an annual writers’ retreat, where established scholars are invited to share their specialised expertise with PRG researchers. Retreats of this nature are specifically for researchers who are working on research projects with the intention of producing research outputs.

In addition to holding writing retreats, the PRC encourages professional/support staff to write for mainstream media and accredited journals. They acquire the skills for this by attending training such as the two-day “Art of Research” workshop by Jive Media Africa, writing skills training by The Conversation Africa and PRC’s online publication workshop.

This support, together with the financial assistance that is available to assist PRG members to improve their qualifications, means there are ample opportunities for these staff members to develop professionally and in their research careers.

The university benefits too, as is evident from the contribution PRG researchers make.

Research outputs and other results

In 2021, PRC captured 19 accredited research publications.

Three researchers who attended the 2021 writers’ retreat published in accredited journals, while seven PRG researchers obtained their qualifications, three of which were doctoral degrees and four master’s degrees. Research development leave for 13 researchers was approved. However, owing to Covid-19 travel restrictions, no PRG researchers applied for research grants to attend conferences in 2021.

The PRC is pleased to report that 19 research ethics applications were approved in 2021. PRC also approved five master’s and doctoral support programmes for the period January to December 2022, while two applications were approved for July 2021 to June 2022 after the second call. The PRC also hosted 15 information sessions, a three-day online publications workshop and a five-day writers’ retreat.

The PRC’s goals and objectives contribute to UNISA’s overall Research and Innovation Strategic Plan 2022-2024, which includes strengthening the university’s position as a leading ODL institution and provider of postgraduate programmes in Africa.

PRC’s vision is to increase the number of PRG researchers,  their accredited research outputs and their qualifications up to doctoral level by at least 5% per year.  This may seem to be a tall order but it is a goal towards which the PRC is committed to working. Like all goals in life, at first it may seem difficult or even impossible until it is done. 

ENGAGED RESEARCH

A transformative orientation to research for social justice and sustainable development

At Unisa, we refuse to accept the world as it is but dare to imagine a different, more just world.

In 2021, as the world was rocked by crisis and disruption, Unisa was resolute in its commitment to be an engaged university. Our engaged scholars collaborated on disaster management, sustainable development, social justice and social cohesion through high-quality, collaborative research that produced enhanced scholarly and development outcomes.

As an engaged university, Unisa advocates a caring, responsive and social justice approach to research. Research is not an end in itself, but a means to the end. That end is the transformation of the academy, people, places, policies, processes, curricula and research.

Engaged research produces knowledge that has the potential to influence change since it takes place with and not just for, or in communities. When researchers depart from the border-controlled gates of higher education and engage in a spirit of humility and care, the resultant research can serve as a catalyst for strengthened connections between higher education and communities. In this way, research can produce socio-economic and environmental change, improved social cohesion and active citizenship.

Unisa’s engaged researchers work with diverse government, business, civil society role players and with communities across settlement types for mutual and reciprocal flows of knowledge. Robust university-community relationships facilitate mutual learning, rich problem description, solutions ideation and the testing of creative solutions for the problems of society.

Highlights of Engaged Research in 2021

In 2021, Unisa’s engaged researchers developed high-impact projects linked to the goals and aspirations of the National Development Plan, Agenda 2063 and the Sustainable Development Goals.

Through effective relationship-building, our engaged researchers and engaged communities were able to infuse the liberating and life-giving principles of social justice across diverse development systems and contexts. (Turn to page XX[CR3]  for three examples of high-impact, engaged research projects under way in 2021.)

Ethical practice in Engaged Research

Unisa’s engaged research efforts are heavily contingent on sound character and ethical practice in our relationships with engaged communities. Ethics in engaged research is vigorously deliberated on at various institutional platforms. In 2021, the Division Community Engagement and Outreach (DCEO) continued to work with the Research Ethics office to ensure that engaged research projects have access to training on research ethics practice, declarations and the ethical clearance processes. DCEO provides training to raise ethical consciousness across engaged scholarship operations. Engaged researchers are trained to identify ethical risk and develop ethical problem-solving skills. In 2021, the DCEO continued its practice of ensuring that all new engaged research project applications would need to first obtain the necessary research ethics clearance before the project can be considered for funding.

Engaged scholarship app deployed

In 2021, the DCEO worked with ICT to create an engaged scholarship app that provides data on where, and with whom our engaged researchers work.

The app and the accompanying business intelligence indicate the engaged research development foci, partners and collaborators, methods, technologies, knowledge mobilisation strategies and ethical clearance status.

Engaged researchers receive automated reminders that the ethical clearance is expiring. The app successfully went live in January 2022 in time for the project plan registration season.

Unisa’s best practices selected for special NRF publication

In 2021, Unisa submitted engaged research case studies to the National Research Foundation (NRF).

The NRF has since met with best practice project teams from Unisa for interviews with a specialised engaged scholarship panel. The Unisa projects selected will be published in an NRF selection of engaged research case studies. The intention is to share knowledge, raise awareness and highlight South African research that embodies principles of ethical engagement.

The principles of engaged research that Unisa’s best practice projects embody are active citizenship, reciprocity, trans- and interdisciplinary knowledge production, ethics and sustainability and relationship building.

The three Unisa projects selected for the special NRF publication are described below.

SCRATCHMAPS: Spiritual capacities and religious assets for transforming community health by mobilizing males for peace and safety 

Project Leader – Dr Naiema Taliep

Located in a low-income community in the Strand, Western Cape, SCRATCHMAPS was initiated in partnership with the local community.

Engaged researcher Dr Naiema Taliep of the Institute for Social and Health Sciences (ISHS), explains that the project focused primarily on the development of an intervention to address youth interpersonal violence. It promotes safety and peace encouraging generative forms of masculinity and mobilising community assets, including spiritual capacity and religious assets.

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) and community engagement strategies were used throughout the stages and processes of the research, underpinned by the central principles of a participatory evaluation framework.

Key outcomes of the project were the Building Bridges mentoring intervention and the Local Network of Care (LNOC).  The Building Bridges intervention was replicated in two communities and the fidelity of implementation has been completed. The outcomes evaluation is the final stage.

The community has taken ownership of the intervention, established a non-profit organisation (Building Bridges Mentoring NPO), and continues to implement the intervention and other community-building activities in multiple communities in the Western Cape.

Using scarce resources in local communities and sharing resources and learning from each other’s experiences, the LNOC aimed to create a compassionate coalition-based network for strengthening relations among service providers in the Strand area to promote safety, social justice, peace and health for all.

Co-sharing and collective authorship

The research embraced a critical lens that is decolonial, liberatory and transformative.  As such, it addresses epistemic injustices and social justice, as well as the capacitation of staff and the communities within which the team works.

“As researchers, we need to always be mindful that the politics of power, and the complexity of community dynamics, continue to be an issue in community-engaged research,” says engaged researcher Dr Naiema Taliep of the ISHS. 

Strategies used to manage group processes and power dynamics in the project included capacitation in communication, negotiation and conflict resolution skills, and the establishment of an advisory committee comprising community members to provide oversight and decision-making to the project.

“Although university academics coordinated the research, local and indigenous knowledge and voices were affirmed and infused, including the co-sharing and co-producing of knowledge, thereby promoting epistemic justice,” Taliep says.

In principle, this research project promoted and ensured a collective authorship writing process in accredited journals. Member/s of the community research activist team were included and contributed to the publications.

The first picture is of Dr Ismail and Dr Naima Taliep with Building Bridges NPO team members and staff of DSD (who funds the NPO currently) who came to do their annual evaluation of the project.

Dr Samed Bulbulia and Dr Naiema Taliep with the Building Bridges team members and two visiting scholars – Prof Sonn from Australia and Prof Dutta from the US.

Lekgotla La-Batho: Regenerating community knowledge for dispute resolution in the South African context

Project Leader: Mr Macdonald Rammala, College of Law

The language used in traditional courts in the North West Province enhances peaceful dispute resolution and brings families together to negotiate, confess, forgive, compensate, heal and engage in a ceremony that restores harmony in the community.

A striking feature of traditional dispute resolution is the critical interplay between lekgotla – a traditional African system of dispute resolution – and idiomatic expressions such as “Mabogo dinku a thibana”, a Setswana idiom that means “working together, we achieve more”.

African dispute resolution embraces a humanistic value system founded on the interconnectedness of human beings. Idiomatic expressions seek to harmonise the process of lekgotla and to heal families involved in disputes, says Macdonald Rammala, project leader of Lekgotla La-Batho and chair of the engaged scholarship portfolio in the College of Law.

“When we talk about traditional idiomatic expressions, we talk about the importance of language, the critical relevance of the use of language in traditional dispute resolutions.”

For the past five years, Rammala has been exploring the interrelations between lekgotla and idiomatic expressions in traditional dispute resolution, as used by the Bakgatla Ba Mosetlha traditional council in Makapanstad village, North-West Province.

Arising from this relationship, he saw the need to highlight the significant role of the authentic language used by members of traditional communities in lekgotla. 

The language of harmony and peace

“Idiomatic expressions expose the processes, procedures and systems that are followed in a traditional dispute resolution mechanism or the traditional courts which have been practised since time immemorial,” he explains.

These expressions have assisted people to solve intricate issues around livestock, murder, land, property, inheritance, and marriage. They are mainly based on reconciliation and on mediating the dispute from the family level all the way to the traditional court level. The language, as used in idiomatic expressions, is also based on harmony and peace.

When a dispute is reported to the traditional court, the processes that are followed revolve, amongst other things, around the use of language in rebuilding the ties – or the social bond or social construct – that have been broken by either a dispute, or misunderstanding or through some conflict that has, for some reason, arisen.

“Negotiation through idiomatic expressions plays a crucial part before, during and post disputes,” says Rammala.

Listening to and learning from the community

The Lekgotla La-Bathoproject is based on action research, where the knowledge holders from the respective communities are the main participants in and beneficiaries of the research.

From a research perspective, it is about rediscovering the distinctly South African ways of dispute resolution, learning from it and designing specific policy solutions, strategies and projects that benefit community participants and society. 

The principal research question is: What customary processes are still practised by communities that could inform a Harmony Model of dispute resolution for the African/South African context?

The focus is on community listening and learning. Community learning takes place in the form of capacity-building workshops with the participation of experts in dispute resolution, community policing and criminal justice, as well as other relevant departments outside of Unisa.

The learning taking place at these events is processed and documented into research reports for academics to enrich syllabuses with the knowledge from the community.

INSIDE-OUT OUTSIDE-IN South African Corrections Interest Group.

Project leader: Prof Eduard Fourie

Recognising the agency of the correctional community is vital, as they are particularly vulnerable as an isolated population, literally existing on the margins of society.

This understanding is the cornerstone of Inside-out, Outside-in, started in 2013 by staff and students at the Department of Psychology.

Unisa has a long history of offenders and ex-offenders enrolling for and completing its qualifications. 

The primary objectives are the development of tertiary education opportunities for offenders, issues of social reintegration and recidivism after release, and issues relating to the families and relatives of offenders.

As a community engagement project, the team strives to adhere to the fundamental principles of Community Psychology by focusing on a bottom-up approach that actively engages with the communities it serves.

“Collaborative efforts in community engagement are imperative in creating far-reaching and sustainable change with our community members, who include offenders, ex-offenders, officials, and their families and communities,” says project leader Professor Eduard Fourie.

“Furthermore, our collaborating networks include local stakeholders in the correctional environment, such as the Department of Correctional Services and Judicial Inspectorate for Correctional Services, as well as global networks such as the Incarceration Nations Network.”

Cooperative, ethical and empowering

The Inside-out team values “Research with a Purpose”, and to that end its studies, and those of its postgraduate students, focus on conducting research with the carceral community that is cooperative, ethical and empowering.

Team members and students have presented the findings of their research in accredited, peer-reviewed journals, as well as at conferences across the globe.

“Most importantly, our research leads to tangible outcomes, in the form of projects initiated by our team, and sustainably continued by offenders themselves,” says Fourie.

Examples of these include the Inside-out Fatherhood Project and the Inside-out Spirituality Project. Both projects stemmed from research studies and have evolved into weekly support groups, where offenders meet to assist one another and discuss common interests and concerns.

“We are also most proud of our Inside-out Books Project, which was established in 2017 to facilitate book donations and has seen, to date, over a thousand books delivered to libraries in correctional centres across South Africa.”

Inside-out also uses volunteers who are psychology undergraduate and honours students at Unisa.

The teaching and learning component of Inside-Out includes informal mentoring that the student volunteers receive from the experienced members who are staff and post-graduate students in the Department of Psychology.

Blurring the lines

In addition, the Inside-out Open Education Resource not only contributes to access and understanding of the correctional environment but engenders a sense of community and collaboration that can enhance social cohesion and blurring of lines between the stigmatisation of the “Inside” and “Outside”.

“Incarcerated communities face many stereotypes and there is no information shattering the master narratives of offenders,” says Fourie.

As a result, research informs the communities in the form of information and possible niche areas have been identified for students to research. “Thus, there has been an increase of research when it comes to incarcerated communities or research in corrections.”

Inside-out also recognises the value of engaged dialogues. The team’s efforts to connect communities on the “inside” and the “outside” have led it to embrace digital forms of community engagement, Fourie says.

“We engage communities online, in multiple locations, that include a website with a Blog, a WhatsApp group and a Facebook page. The team has developed and maintained these digital portals to connect users, keeping them up to date with group activities and events.”

These digital spaces earned us recognition from the South African Humanities and Social Sciences Awards in 2018, presenting Inside-out’s online platforms with first runners-up in the Best Digital Humanities Project for Community Engagement.

Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/insideoutoutsideinproject/

Blog:

https://sites.google.com/view/insideoutwikipage/out-and-about-with-inside-out

Wiki Page:

https://sites.google.com/view/insideoutwikipage/inside-out-wiki-page