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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

State of our campuses: UFS extends vacation as from 28 September until 7 October 2016

2016-09-28

In solidarity with the call for free education for the poor and missing middle, a discussion was held with the University Management Committee this morning, in consultation with the student leadership, and after careful assessment of operational matters on all three campuses of the University of the Free State (UFS), we agreed upon the following:

1.    All classes, tests, and assignments will be suspended until Friday 7 October 2016. This means that the university will close on Wednesday 28 September 2016 for an extended vacation until 7 October 2016. The academic programme will resume on Monday 10 October 2016.

2.    This will allow the entire university time to demonstrate solidarity, in collaboration with student leadership, academic and support staff, and the broader community in support of free higher education for the poor and missing middle.

3.    The administration of the university will continue on Thursday 29
September 2016, and staff will have access to their offices to plan the additional academic support for students, to consider the re-scheduling of the academic calendar, to engage with the Department of Higher Education and Training in relation to the students’ demands, and to continue with support services during the extended vacation.

4.    The university management and student leadership will also, over the next three days, engage in discussions to provide for a platform that is conducive to continued collaboration between students and the university leadership.

5.    The suspension of tests, classes, and assignments will also allow time for a social compact and code of ethics for protests to be agreed upon and signed between student leadership and the university management.

In respect of the Qwaqwa Campus, some protesting students yesterday intimidated others and forcibly removed staff, as well as security personnel. Today, university property was burnt. In view of our commitment to the safety of staff, students, and university property at the campus, it was necessary to evacuate the campus – including residences – with immediate effect. However, residential students are allowed to remain on campus until midday tomorrow (28 September 2016).

The university leadership again wants to emphasise its support for a national policy of free education for the poor and missing middle and stresses its support for peaceful protests on matters that are of concern to our students.

We further understand the frustration of many students and their parents/guardians at the closure of the campuses and the impact it has on academic staff, staff in the Support Services, our security personnel, teaching, learning, projects, assignments, lectures, tests, fieldwork, and the academic calendar in general, and commit to do all in our power to ensure the delivery of quality education to all our students under difficult circumstances.

Released by:
Lacea Loader (Director: Communication and Brand Management)
Telephone: +27 51 401 2584 | +27 83 645 2454
Email: news@ufs.ac.za | loaderl@ufs.ac.za
Fax: +27 51 444 6393

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