2024 UFS Exceptional Academic Achievement for Team Research at UFS Awarded to Higher Education and Human Development Research Group  

Overview

Sustained effort over 12 years has gone into building this new and rather remarkable research group in which Prof Melanie Walker’s leadership, hard work, and long-term commitment to the group and to the UFS have been central at all times.  Her focus has been on fostering a collective that understands the importance of each person’s own development, achievement, and ownership of their own project, but always with a mutual responsibility, solidarity, and care towards all others in the group. Collective learning is a core feature of how the group operates.  We have tried to live by and operationalise ubuntu principles in forming and sustaining the well-being and achievements of our group, where the well-being of the group turns on the well-being of all the team members. We acknowledge, too, the families who stand behind each person in the group. Our students do not come from well-off backgrounds and the majority have been first-generation PhDs, making for a significant and important equity contribution to class, country, and heritage by the group, by Prof Melanie Walker, and by the UFS.

Each person matters and is supported, and their full potentiality nourished in and by the team and by wider networks of exposure to international visitors. All are encouraged (and funded) to attend national and international conferences and present their own research. Achievements are celebrated and valued at public events and via our WhatsApp group:  graduations, our HEHD book posters ‘wall of fame’, small-scale ECR funding awards, new publications, personal birthdays, and so forth. As people spend more time in the group, expectations are raised as to what they do and contribute, all building towards a CV and career pathway.

However, it is important to emphasise that all of this is underpinned by the expectation and achievement of the highest quality research, which can be compared with the best universities in the world – this is affirmed year after year by external examiners, by successful funding bids and publications, and by the feedback we get from our steady stream of international visitors. Moreover, having a cohesive theme in common – human development in the space of higher education – enables constructive and creative interaction across the range of our projects, while also being sufficiently broad to allow each person to explore their own particular interest. In short, a ‘broad but vague’ common approach allows us to break new-knowledge ground and produce cutting-edge work. Nor could it happen without the sustained institutional commitment by the UFS – which funds most of our PhDs and half of our postdoctoral fellows, the support of successive deputy vice-chancellors, as well as the vice-chancellor. In addition, core funding from the NRF under Prof Melanie Walker’s SARCHi Chair enables the range of our development activities.

The core team members are Professor Melanie Walker, Associate Professor Mikateko Mathebula, and Associate Professor Faith Mkwanazi. The latter two are PhD graduates of the programme. There is a revolving cohort of full-time doctoral students (up to nine in any one year) who all graduated in just over three years before moving on to postdoctoral positions, or in the case of postdoctoral fellows (up to six in any one year) to university appointments, and the occasional international early-career fellowship attachment (three so far). Current PhDs (2024) are Judith Sikala (F, Zimbabwe); Daizy Nalwamba (F, Zambia), Tsholofelo Motlogeloa (M, South Africa), Crespen Ndlovu (M, Zimbabwe), Suzyika Nyimbili (Zambia), Aluwani Mauda (F, South Africa), Monthusi Magosi (M, Botswana), Gloria Adjei (F, Ghana), Tolulope Mshelia (F, Nigeria). Current postdocs are Fenella Somerville (F, South Africa), Tiffany Banda (F, Malawi), Simon Ngalomba (M, Tanzania), Edward Mboyonga (M, Zambia), Kurauone Masungo (M, Zimbabwe) and Chimwemwe Phiri (M, Malawi). Some of the postdocs and PhDs have been involved in research projects as fieldworkers and researchers (for example, Mathebula started as researcher on a four-year funded project); most recently, Fenella Somerville and Tiffany Banda worked on the Sustainability Universities in South Africa project.

For the first five-year review in 2018 (the second, successful review was in 2022), one international evaluator wrote: ‘The work that has been done since the original grant was awarded is considerable and the outputs both from Prof Walker and from her colleagues and students is impressive … I have seldom seen such a strong application, either from NRF or from any of the other funding bodies for which I provide advice (including ESRC, Australian Research Council, and various Canadian and European funding agencies). The achievements of both Melanie Walker and the group of people with whom she works (staff and students) at the UFS are remarkable’.

The success of this team is due to hard work, dedication, and partnering with others to contribute to knowledge building for a better world. Together we have built a remarkable and sustainable research ecosystem, where individual and collective excellence can flourish.

Significant contributions to our field of expertise, and contributions to South African (and global) scholarship with impact

The research programme of this interdisciplinary group (across education, sociology, philosophy and development studies) 1) theorises, operationalises, and critically analyses higher education policy and practices, framed by concerns about justice, an ecology of knowledges, decolonisation, and solidarity; 2) connects the processes and findings of research with practice to support public reasoning and dialogue; 3) attempts to influence transformative change in higher education in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA); and 4) contributes to critical reflection on global higher education dynamics in ways that foreground human development and justice. The programme has been coherent, with three distinctive but intersecting themes: 1) Transitions and trajectories: access, success, and participation in and beyond higher education; 2) Knowledge, curriculum, pedagogies and in/equalities; 3) The public good. Broadly, the linked key activities under the chair are 1) Southern scholarship/knowledge generation, and 2) capacity building of graduate students and early career researchers.

The research group is remarkable in that it has been built from the bottom up from PhD and early career projects under the leadership of the chair and in pioneering and producing a distinctive national and global research space of human development in higher education spaces.  The team now comprises three senior researchers, graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows, all carrying out cutting-edge research of national importance and continental and global significance, focused on well-being, equalities, and freedoms in and through higher education in South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).

Over 12 years, an inclusive and sustainable research eco-system has been built. Importantly, high-quality social science research is never the work of just one talented researcher; it is an ever-evolving property of the ecosystem in which people collaborate and support each other as a diverse but cohesive team. The team has a clear and shared goal – to contribute to capabalitarian scholarship in and from SSA, with work oriented to producing knowledge on higher education justice and equality in the human development space, to build capacity through training, and to do work with societal relevance and impact.  The global quality of work and thinking done at all levels is always central, while creative freedom allows researchers from early career to senior researchers to develop and pursue the research interests that matter to them.

Having pioneered work on higher education in human development as a small team, we ‘punch above our weight’ in terms of global recognition and standing (evident, for example, in Prof Walker being elected as President of the HDCA, and various team members leading thematic groups or serving on the HDCA executive committee over the years). The team has contributed to a substantial body of research knowledge through the 25 PhD theses completed thus far, to numerous books and journals, and through regular participation in conferences nationally (SAERA, HELTASA) and globally (HDCA, BAICE, CIES, UKFIET, SRHE, HECU). Global research and development links have been forged with SSA, Europe (Spain, Italy, Germany), the UK (Lancaster, Bristol, Oxford, UCL, Warwick, Nottingham), and the USA (Minnesota). This has enabled us over 12 years to generate innovative and original ideas in a team that learns from each other.

Research Team Impact: 22 Books (2013-2024), Core Team and Postdoctoral Fellows

Research Team Impact: 27 book chapters and 29 articles, all on the DHET list and accepted for RIMS subsidy (book chapters as well); around 80% in international journals and publishers, including journals in higher education, comparative education, and development studies, for example: Third World Quarterly, Oxford Development Studies, Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, Cambridge Journal of Education, Comparative and International Education Journal (COMPARE), Comparative Education, Journal of Global Ethics, Educational Action Research, Journal of Student Affairs in Africa, Comparative Education, Critical Studies in Education, Higher Education, Studies in Higher Education, and Asia Pacific Education Review.  (Rims Excel spreadsheet available).

Moreover, the team contributes to capacity beyond itself – enabling graduates and postdocs to take up positions across South Africa, in SSA, and globally at CODESRIA, UP, UWC, Wits, NWU, Unisa, Malawi, UK (Glasgow, Lancaster), Zimbabwe, USA (Ohio), Kazakhstan, and New Zealand. 

Further, we are productive academic citizens who are giving back through peer review, for example, the Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, Compare, CriSTal, Journal of Action Research, and the Migration and Ethnic Minorities Journal, reviewing funding applications for CODESRIA (2024) and the ESRC over many years, and refereeing book proposals.  We have taken on roles on editorial boards and in association special interest groups (SIGs) and African early career researcher networks.

Thus, impact in our case should be understood as the following: 1) Considerably expanding the training of young African scholars in the context of the marginalisation of SSA scholarship (most recently as co-leads on the Strengthening Research in SSA Initiative, through which a collaborative agreement has been signed with the University of Zambia (2024-2028). 2) Contributing to scholarship and training through publications and conferences/webinars/workshops. 3) Popular writing, such as research briefs on our website. 4) Participatory research projects, which empower and expand the agency of youth and community. 5) In the substantive education and societal relevance of the knowledge we produce around issues and challenges, such as public-good professional education, access and participation in higher education for black youth, gender and agency, employability, arts-based education, life after university for rural black graduates, citizenship, disability, international students, and more.

Having pioneered the capability approach, we now find this being taken up in higher education in spaces and places as diverse as Minnesota, Valencia, Oxford, Lancaster, Bristol, Bulgaria, Poland, Kazakhstan, Zimbabwe, China, and more. Work by team members, including but not limited to the work of Prof Melanie Walker, has had and continues to have a very significant impact on a global cohort of new generation and mid-career scholars.

Research Team Impact, 2023: 69 Contributions via Webinars and Conferences

Contribution to diversity and inclusion in our field of expertise

There is a proud record of supporting the next generation of SSA researchers.

Currently, the core team comprises three female researchers: one white South African female (Walker), one black South African female (Mathebula), and one black Zimbabwean female with permanent residence (Mkwananzi). Over the years, there have been three white South African doctoral students, three black South Africans and one from Spain, the remainder being black students from SSA (Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Nigeria, Ghana, Malawi). There has been a good balance of female and male students and postdoctoral fellows over the years. The postdoctoral fellows included three white South Africans, two black South Africans, and fellows from Finland, India, Vietnam, Spain, Argentina, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Tanzania. Thus, the team is diverse in heritage, representing many different countries, different career stages, and with different projects.

Further, recognising the importance of inclusive leadership development in higher education studies, early career researchers are encouraged to develop crucial soft skills such as teamwork, communication, problem-solving, emotional intelligence, and collective leadership (organising a semester of webinars for example – selecting and inviting speakers, organising chairs, discussants, timing, and so on). Social skills are just as important, as research achievements do not happen in isolation.

A record of sustained academic excellence in our fields and our international reputation in terms of scholarship

In addition to the above narrative, we note:

NRF ratings: A1 (Walker), Y1 (Mkwananzi), Y2 (Mathebula), C2 (Wilson-Strydom, core member left in 2018)

International reputation, for example, Prof Melanie Walker elected President of HDCA 2022-2024.

International expertise, for example, Prof Melanie Walker: International reviewer of master’s programme (Development Studies), University of Antwerp, May 2023; appointed by Spanish Research Council (CSIC) to Scientific Advisory Board, INGENIO; invitations to examine PhDs (in 2023, Oxford and UCT), top 2% of researchers globally, various keynotes (Seoul, Taiwan, Sofia, Bratislava, etc.).

Body of knowledge: 25 PhD research projects completed since 2016 in the field of human development and higher education; around 23 funded research projects.

Co-hosting international HDCA conference in 2017 (with UCT, UWC, and HSRC).

International collaborations previous and current including:  Boni (Spain), Buckler (UK), McCowan (UK), Cin (UK), Martinez-Vargas (UK), McLean (UK), Bathmaker (UK), Henderson (UK), TESF Programme (UK/Bristol), Dejaeghere (USA), Otto (Germany), Chiappero-Martinetti (Italy), Ashwin (UK), Naidoo (UK), Case (USA).

PhD and postdoc destinations testify to the quality of our early career researchers and our reputation.

Significant competitive national and international funding (see table below), with SARCHI Chair funded since 2013

Contribution to the public’s understanding of our field of expertise, evidence of meaningful and impactful work over time

Because our focus has been on building a strong research network and group from scratch, we have devoted less time to public understanding of our expertise.  However, we are making inroads in addition to our significant scholarly impact, while our arts-based methods point to community intervention and engagement. Further, our ‘community’ is based in higher education spaces as much as outside (students, lecturers). Thus, we have created, maintained, and expanded our local, regional, and international networks, with a focus on interventions through writing workshops and project collaborations (e.g., with the University of Limpopo, Midlands State University, National University of Science and Technology, University of Malawi). We have created and maintained networks with community-based and non-governmental organisations (for example, Pala Forerunners and Basilwizi Youth Trust, both of whom are partners in different projects). We have been involved in radio and blog interviews on the use of storytelling methods for higher education research (for example, https://wels.open.ac.uk/research/projects/ibali/knowledge-hub/shedding-light-educational-inclusion-and-exclusion-through). Contributing to The Conversation (for example, we asked university students to tell their own stories in photos: here’s why, https://theconversation.com/we-asked-university-students-to-tell-their-own-stories-in-photos-heres-why-143565) and produced a short film on participatory research (Reflections on using participatory methods in higher education research with youth, and to the UFS website https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99kEnL-tP3E). We have sought to use participatory research to illuminate the complexities of poverty and the potential of youth fighting it, and to understand how youth conceptualise and act on social justice, as further examples. Our arts-based methods have been empowering for youth through their participation in storytelling processes and public exhibition; in the case of the graffiti/street art project (Mkwananzi), it involved a travelling national exhibition in Zimbabwe and widespread public engagement. Other participatory projects have engaged students and academic staff, and we have reached out to policy makers.

We continue to work on and develop this aspect of our work now that we have achieved a solid base of scholarly work that needs to underpin such interventions.