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UFS partners with The Conversation Africa

03 March 2022 | Story Dr Nitha Ramnath | Photo istock

The University of the Free State (UFS) has joined The Conversation Africa (TCA) as a funding partner. TCA, a not-for-profit media initiative, is part of a global platform that publishes articles written by academics and researchers. The platform’s objective is to make the knowledge produced in the academy accessible, easy to understand, and freely available to the general public. Articles are published daily on the TC-Africa website - https://theconversation.com/africa.

The platform uses a Creative Commons republishing model. This means articles can be republished by other media on the continent and internationally, ensuring even greater reach to audiences including academics, policy makers, funders, and the general public.

To date, more than 55 UFS researchers and academics have published with TCA, and their articles have garnered more than 1,3 million readers globally. UFS researchers and academics are encouraged to publish with The Conversation.

As part of the partnership, TCA will run writing workshops for UFS academics and researchers who want to enhance their writing and science communication skills. Dates for these will be announced soon.

How you can publish with The Conversation Africa

• Engage with The Conversation Africa editors when they contact you directly to write about your research area and expertise. The articles are short, ± 800 to 1 000 words.

• Pitch your idea for an article directly to The Conversation Africa here

• Register as an author, and set up a profile

• Engage with the Communication and Research offices. Every week, The Conversation Africa sends an expert request for expert authors on topical issues to the Communication and Research offices, which can identify researchers.

- Interested researchers are put into contact with the relevant editor at The Conversation to discuss the potential article

Why should you get published on The Conversation Africa?

Benefits for researchers and academics:

• Articles on the platform help to raise the profile of academics, often leading to policy engagement with governments, businesses, industry or professional bodies, conference invitations, academic collaborations, and further media exposure.

• In the course of writing, academics get bespoke editorial assistance from the team working in consultation with them.

• The opportunity to take part in a hands-on science communication writing workshop.

• Readership and republication metrics for each published article.

• A global readership with up to 1,2 million readers monthly.

Benefits for Communication and Marketing and the Research office:

• Provides well-curated, ready-to-use communication material for websites and social media.

• Helps to profile the work of the university for marketing, communication, and awareness.

• Provides media exposure to the talent pool of UFS academics and researchers.

Benefits for and across the university:

• Shines a spotlight on the excellent research and innovation at the UFS.

• Demonstrates the UFS’ commitment to facilitating greater engagement with society and promoting interdisciplinary communications.

• Visibility for the institution and researchers nationally and globally.

• Access to institutional analytics, including detailed data on the content published by UFS researchers.

Contact The Conversation Africa:

To arrange departmental meetings and introductory sessions to The Conversation Africa team, contact: Pfungwa Nyamukachi, Strategic Partnerships and Stakeholder Relations Manager: pfungwa.nyamukachi@theconversation.com

News Archive

Death may come in adorable little packages

2015-03-23

The main host of the Lassa virus is the Natal Mulimammate mouse.

Photo: Supplied

Postdoctoral researcher, Abdon Atangana, of the Institute for Groundwater Studies at the university recently published an article online about the Lassa Haemorrhagic fever in the Natural Computing Applications Forum. In addition to the terminal transmissible sickness recognised as Ebola haemorrhagic fever, there is another strain called Lassa haemorrhagic fever.

The disease is classified under the arenaviridae virus family. The first outbreaks of the disease were observed in Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and the Central African Republic. However, it was first described in 1969 in the town of Lassa, in Borno State, Nigeria.

The main host of the Lassa virus is the Natal Mulimammate mouse, an animal indigenous to most of Sub-Saharan Africa. The contamination in humans characteristically takes place through exposure to animal excrement through the respiratory or gastrointestinal tracts.

Mouthfuls of air containing tiny particle of infective material are understood to be the most noteworthy way of exposure. It is also possible to acquire the infection through broken skin or mucous membranes that are directly exposed to the infective material.

“The aim of my research was to propose a novel mathematical equation used to describe the spread of the illness amongst pregnant women in West Africa. To achieve this, I used my newly-proposed derivative with fractional order called beta-derivative. Since none of the commonly used integral transform could be used to derive the solution of the proposed model, I proposed a new integral transform called Atangana-Transform, and used it, together with some iterative technique, to derive the solution of the model.

“My numerical simulations show that the disease is as deadly amongst pregnant women as Ebola,” Abdon said.

Abdon’s research was submitted to one of Springer’s top-tier journals with an impact factor 1.78. The paper was accepted and published February 2015.