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RESEARCH INNOVATION THROUGH SPORT
Professor Josè Frantz, Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research and Innovation
WHEN THE UNIVERSITY W OF THE WESTERN CAPE (UWC) unveiled its 2016 – 2020 Institutional Operating Plan (IOP), a global pandemic was the last thing the institution’s management expected to contend with in the final year of the plan’s roll-out.
Yet, despite the challenges that universities faced due to the COVID-19 pandemic, UWC remained committed to increasing “its capacity to produce and advance new knowledge” through research that would lead to innovation.
THE OFFICIAL LAUNCH of the university’s High-Performance Centre (HPC) in January 2022 is one example of how research led UWC to establish a world-class centre for athletes at the institution.
“Sport was identified as a priority at UWC during the time of our relations with VLIR [the Flemish Interuniversity Council], which led to the establishment of our Interdisciplinary Centre for Sport Science and Development (ICSSD) in 2009. The aim was to make an impact on sport at UWC, nationally and internationally,” explains Prof Josè Frantz, Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research and Innovation.
IN 2017, Prof Frantz asked Brent Hess, a physiotherapist and manager of the centre, and Keenan Watson, a performance specialist and sports scientist at the High- Performance Unit, to investigate the level of institutional expertise on high performance in sport required to enable student-athletes to optimise their performance. Their investigation included visits to local and international high-performance centres to learn more about their structure and services. Thanks to Watson and Hess’s groundwork, UWC’s newly unveiled HPC offers sport-specific training, strength and conditioning, nutrition, physiotherapy, biokinetics, and sport psychology services to student athletes.
UNIVERSITIES were particularly hard hit with regard to research and innovation over the last two years. UWC responded by implementing objective measures of looking at research output and publications, thereby maintaining its outputs. However, the inability of students and staff to collect data during different stages of the pandemic restrictions “delayed the finalisation of many projects”, says Prof Frantz.
RESEARCH IN SPORT was also affected. “Contact with athletes was limited while access to gyms and training spaces were restricted, and this ultimately impacted the effect the centre could have on high performance among UWC athletes and sports personnel,” Prof Frantz says. Despite these challenges, research and innovation at UWC maintained the upward trend of the past decade that saw the number of NRF-rated researchers increase from 65 in 2010 to 160 in 2020, and the number of SARChI research chairs increase from 3 in 2010 to 18 in 2018. The proportion of permanent academic staff with PhDs rose to 59% in 2018, among the highest of South Africa’s 26 public universities.
“We have provided additional support to researchers across the spectrum. Early career researchers are supported to complete their PhDs and mid-career researchers to expand their networks, while we are growing the number of leading researchers in faculties,” she says.
PROF FRANTZ says innovation has also become part of UWC’s overall “social responsibility” focus. In 2021, the institution formed a social innovation partnership with Samsung that culminated in the development of the institution’s Future Innovation Lab where learners are trained to develop apps. “This has seen us provide young people with employment opportunities and digital and social innovation skills for the job market.
“With the new IOP, we will build on our successes but aim to provide more opportunities for innovation by developing a UWC Innovation Fund to kick-start research. We would also like internal UWC Research Chairs to drive this. These are but a few examples of what we will be doing in the next IOP in general and as it pertains to sport,” says Prof Frantz. B+G
UWC’S FOCUS ON RESEARCH AND INNOVATION EXTENDS FAR BEYOND THE SPORTS ENVIRONMENT.
In 2017, the institution received R35 million from the NRF Strategic Research Equipment Programme to support the Gamma-ray Spectrometer for Knowledge in Africa (GAMKA) project, developing a “ball of detectors with high-end capabilities for gamma radiation” to study a “wide range of nuclear properties and phenomena” and contribute to the nuclear physics and nuclear astrophysics fields.
UWC has also recently developed economically significant innovations in the exciting field of bioscience, says Prof Frantz.
“During the last IOP, we were able to create our first spin-off company, Hyrax BioScience, moving research from an idea to innovation to industry.”
