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Building a research career with global impact

13 July 2023 | Story Andre Damons | Photo Samkelo Fetile

A visiting scholar from Trinity College Dublin in Ireland visited the University of the Free State (UFS) to work with staff members from the UFS Transformation of the Professoriate Mentoring Programme on identifying collaborations, writing, and building a research career.

Prof Catherine Comiskey, a professor in Healthcare Statistics from the School of Nursing and Midwifery at Trinity College Dublin and Academic Director of CHARM-EU – an EU-funded academic programme – held a writing retreat for participants in the Transformation of the Professoriate Mentoring Programme in the last week of June. She also worked with individual members to identify potential European and UK collaborators on various research projects. On Friday 30 June, she presented a lecture on building a research career with global impact.

Encouraging staff members

According to Dr Henriëtte van den Berg, Manager: Transformation of the Professoriate Mentoring Programme, Prof Comiskey encouraged colleagues to develop a research and publication strategy to ensure that they optimise the work they are doing, to look for opportunities to collaborate with colleagues across different disciplines, and to work together on publications and the supervision of postgraduate students.

“She also emphasised the importance of collaborating with people in industry, as they often have a rich source of data that is publishable. She highlighted the importance of being an ethical researcher. The workshop participants benefited from her passion and broad knowledge to start planning collaborations and to reflect on how they can make the work they are already doing work more for them. A group of workshop participants has already started working on a systematic review that they will conduct in collaboration with Prof Comiskey,” said Dr Van den Berg.

Share expertise

Prof Comiskey facilitated online writing interventions for the colleagues of the mentoring programme during COVID-19 lockdown restrictions. She was invited to the campus to share her expertise in quantitative methodology and transdisciplinary work.

Prof Comiskey completed a PhD in Mathematics and coordinates many interdisciplinary research teams, comprising applied mathematicians, statisticians, psychologists, medical doctors, sociologists, anthropologists, nurses, computer scientists, and healthcare employees. She has been selected as one of five international experts nominated by the European Commission to serve on the International Scientific Committee of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction.

She has 30 years’ experience of teaching, research, postgraduate supervision, and teaching to specialists and non-specialists in all areas of applied statistics, mathematics, and epidemiology. She is also a seasoned academic leader, having served as Research Director at Trinity College, Dublin for many years.

CHARM-EU is an EU-funded academic programme spanning five European universities to develop, run, and evaluate a new EU-wide model for Universities of the Future. This involves a new transdisciplinary master’s degree that addresses the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

News Archive

Recognition to excellent researchers

2004-11-16

The University of the Free State will give recognition to excellent researchers at UFS on Tuesday 16 November 2004. “This recognition function will also serve as the first annual lecture in research excellence,” says Prof Frans Swanepoel, Director of Research Development Division at the UFS.

This is the first occasion of its kind in the UFS. It coincides with the university’s centenary celebrations. The recognition of excellent research shows the UFS’s commitment and innovative focus on research as one of its core functions,” says Prof. Swanepoel.

Recognition will be given in different categories. They are female researchers, black researchers, young researchers, C- and L-Rated researchers, researchers with significant research outputs, B-Rated researchers and distinguished professors in research.

The promotion of equity and development of research capacity of designated groups is one of the objectives of the UFS’s research strategy therefore the university is recognising the research achievements of 21 women and 16 black persons. Amongst these are Prof. Margaret Raftery (English and Classical Languages), Dr Liesl van As (Zoology and Entomology), Prof. Peter Mbati (head of the Qwaqwa campus) and Prof. Charles Ngwena (Constitutional Law and Philosophy of Law).

The UFS is also recognising nine young researchers. They must hold a doctorate and have the potential to establish themselves as researchers within a five-year period based on their performance and productivity as researchers during their doctoral studies and/or early post-doctoral careers. Amongst them are Dr Esta van Heerden (Microbial Biochemical and Food Biotechnology) and Prof. André Jooste (Agricultural Economics).

Fifty-eight established researchers with a sustained recent record of productivity are receiving recognition in the C- and L-rated researchers’ category. Amongst them were Prof. Hennie van Coller (Afrikaans, Dutch, German and French) and Prof. Gert Erasmus (Animal- and Wildlife- and Grassland Sciences).

Prof. Francois Tolmie (New Testament) and Prof. Gina Joubert (Biostatistics) are two of the twelve researchers that are receiving recognition for having excelled in research outputs during recent years.

Nine researchers are acknowledged in the B-category for the international recognition they receive from their peers for the high quality and impact of their recent research outputs. Amongst them were Prof. Johan Grobbelaar (Plant Sciences) and Prof. Hendrik Swart (Physics). Prof. Grobbelaar focused in his research on limnology, algal biotechnology, plant stress and Prof. Swart focused on solid state physics and degradation mechanisms that are responsible for the degradation of field emission and TV displays.

Seven individuals are recognised for their exceptional achievements as researchers. Prof. Frederick Fourie, Rector, but previously in the Department of Economics, is recognised for his research in two policy areas: Political Economics, Government Finance and Fiscal Policy, and Industrial Economics, in particular analysis of the South African industrial structure and competition policy, where his research contributions played a key role in reforming South Africa’s competition policy.

Prof. Lodewyk Kock (Microbial, Biochemical and Food Biotechnology) focuses in his research mainly on pure and oxidised edible oil where yeasts are used as a study model. He obtained national as well as international recognition for this research program.

The UFS is also awarding the S2A3 Bronze Medal to recognise a Master’s degree student who has delivered outstanding research in one of the sciences. Mr Pieter Taljaard and Ms Tania Venter are recognised in this category.

Media release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Media Representative
Tel: (051) 401-2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za

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