Phd capacity building from aid to innovation the sanpad santrust experience

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PhD capacity-building, from aid to innovation: the SANPAD-SANTRUST experience a

b

Brigitte Smit , Charmaine Williamson & Anshumali Padayachee b a

Department of Educational Leadership and Management, College of Education , University of South Africa b

SANTRUST, 18 Imperial Office Suites , University Drive, Westville, eThekwini , Kwa-Zulu Natal , South Africa Published online: 19 Mar 2013.

To cite this article: Brigitte Smit , Charmaine Williamson & Anshumali Padayachee (2013) PhD capacity-building, from aid to innovation: the SANPAD-SANTRUST experience, Studies in Higher Education, 38:3, 441-455, DOI: 10.1080/03075079.2013.773218 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2013.773218

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Studies in Higher Education, 2013 Vol. 38, No. 3, 441–455, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2013.773218

PhD capacity-building, from aid to innovation: the SANPADSANTRUST experience Brigitte Smita, Charmaine Williamsonb and Anshumali Padayacheeb* a

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Department of Educational Leadership and Management, College of Education, University of South Africa; bSANTRUST, 18 Imperial Office Suites, University Drive, Westville, eThekwini, Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa The article illustrates how the South Africa–Netherlands Research Programme on Alternatives in Development (SANPAD), a doctoral research preparation programme for candidates on the African continent, evolved from an aid programme to an exemplary model of innovation, namely SANTRUST, an ownership-driven partnership within the framework of internationalization. This model of innovation includes a programme with a novel approach to focus on redress in South Africa, particularly for Black women researchers. The research design for this inquiry used an intrinsic case study, with interviews, observations and document analysis as data collection strategies. The case study revealed how SANTRUST, the innovation model, which is now the fully-fledged South-owned programme, sustained the SANPAD aid programme. The key finding revealed that SANTRUST in its relationship with research universities has matured into an example of sustainable national and international cooperation within a knowledge network paradigm.

Keywords: higher education; aid; innovation; knowledge networks; internationalization; partnerships; SANPAD/SANTRUST; research universities; South Africa

Introduction The South Africa–Netherlands Research Programme on Alternatives in Development (SANPAD) aid model of international collaboration between North and South partners does not claim to be the only model of best practice for building doctoral research capacity in Africa, but simply to be one approach. It includes a model which has been tried and tested with 760 PhD candidates, over 15 years, and which has been reviewed and evaluated as effective and efficient and has data to substantiate that it has worked for Africa. This inquiry shows that, in the years of its existence, it has built a strongly Southled knowledge network that spans countries, disciplines and generations of academics and it is poised to evolve and adapt in ever-challenging academic contexts across Africa. In the past, South African higher education faced an oppressive, damaging, apartheid education system, and at the onset of democracy, the huge task of reconstructing and transforming itself. Nineteen years later, there is still much to be done, but South Africa is equally asking important questions about how transformation can lead to innovation and what role universities should play to achieve this. Innovation is often a troubled concept *Corresponding author. Email: anshu@SANPAD.org.za © 2013 Society for Research into Higher Education

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in higher education, and even scantily reviewed in the literature (Hannen, English, and Silver 1999). For those, however, in the South African world of capacity building through international cooperation for development, crafting innovation is an increasingly important criterion for developing partnerships (Republic of South Africa 2010).

South Africa’s use of international cooperation for development to stimulate catalytic and novel approaches to reducing poverty and stimulating progress remains the touchstone for entering development partnerships in the increasingly challenging configurations of balancing power within the ‘big worlds’ of globalization and internationalization. This was not always the case and South Africa, in the heady days of the new democracy, like other recipients, accepted what was then termed ‘aid’ with the intent of reconstruction and development as opposed to pioneering, ground-breaking initiatives (Republic of South Africa 2003). Much has changed since 1994 and, as South Africa increasingly claims its space in the global geopolitics, the focus seems to have shifted from aid to innovation. In this context, parallels may be drawn in terms of similar shifts, as Altbach and McGill Peterson (2007) contend that research universities could be seen as the preferred or optimal route to achieve innovation, whereas Silver (1999) questions this by asking: what kind of innovation and whose innovation, and whose interests are best served. SANPAD, as an entity located within both the development cooperation and the higher education sector, problematizes such issues and offers for consideration, a case of aid to innovation, by presenting an ongoing experiment of building PhD capacity within international knowledge networks, the self-same networks that have, since Von Humboldt and the University of Berlin in the nineteenth century, developed and questioned research universities.

Conceptual framework This inquiry is conceptualized by theories based on internationalization and knowledge network paradigms, with reference to aid and innovation. Internationalization, as a conceptual framework, is considered a dynamic concept that takes its cue from Knight (2008, xi), who offers internationalization strategies to include ‘international cooperation and development projects, institutional agreements and networks, the international/intercultural dimension of the teaching/learning process, curriculum and research, the mobility of academics through exchange, field work, sabbaticals, and consultancy work’. Internationalization is also considered through the lens of problematizing the role of the research university in South Africa and asserting the need for capacity building as a precursor to realizing such a research university while managing the everaccelerating, complex dynamics of internationalized dimensions of higher education.

Internationalization and the challenge of research universities in South Africa The research university, through its evolution, has become part of the internationalization of the higher education landscape (Knight 2008; Altbach and Salmi 2011). This contention is strengthened by the claim that the science of universities is to the global knowledge-based economy of the millennium what the machine tool sector was to the economies of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (David 1994).

It is in this respect that Altbach (2011) argues for the establishment of research universities as a means to achieve a strong, knowledge-based economy. He does, however, acknowledge the ‘centre and the peripheries’ (2009, 2011), that there are very few research universities worldwide, that they are expensive to develop and support, and,

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for developing countries, that research universities are especially rare. Notwithstanding this admission, Altbach and Salmi (2011), and Mohrman, Ma, and Baker (2007) maintain that research universities are especially important as key ingredients for economic and social progress.

Fittingly, Larédo and Mustar (2004) remind us that the roles of research universities will be mediated by different country contexts and that one cannot fully appreciate such actual or potential roles without knowledge of the country’s specific historical and current development. In the developing country context one has be cognizant of the fact that the priorities differ and that, in the developing world, high-level capacity building appears to be the priority. While Mohrman, Ma, and Baker (2007) do highlight an emerging global model (EGM) of the research universities that would perhaps address a model for countries within the developing world, they nevertheless reinforce the realities and notions that EGM universities require extensive financial resources, and might well form an ‘elite subset in a larger universe of higher education institutions’ (Mohrman, Ma, and Baker 2007, 175).

For South Africa, the context of this case, the research universities, and even the emerging model that has been posited would be a significant ideological departure from the ‘pressure from the national government to create equitable and accessible universities’ (Stromquist et al. 2007, 9). Teferra and Greijn, (2010, 1) open up the scope of the argument above when they state that ‘African higher education systems are perhaps the most marginalized in the world, and yet the most internationalized in their form, dimension and scope’. They maintain that ‘most of the knowledge created and developed worldwide originates in the North and Africa consumes it almost entirely’ (2010, 1). We acknowledge, in line with Teferra and Greijn, that given this position, Africa has to take on the ramifications of globalization, steeped in its history, its economics, its education, its finances and its paradigms; these situating Africa in a position of weakness. As such, Africa’s charting its own course, in the face of untapped potential, is complicated as it addresses globalization. It is these issues that proponents of the research university perhaps do not give sufficient nuanced attention to, as they argue for the necessity for research universities.

Aarts and Greijn (2010, 11), conversely, speak of ‘endogenous innovation’, developed in a participatory manner and proximate to those who use the innovation. They reinforce the view that research capacity will strengthen in the developing world with attendant Southward shifts in innovation. Having reviewed the above arguments, we concur that universities and research are paramount to the success of poverty reduction strategies that have their pronounced contours in Africa, and to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. Research universities may well be the drivers of some of the successes behind such strategies and achievement of important goals. However, all universities and research need to be led by capacitated people. The missing link appears to be between developing countries’ challenges in higher education and the research university assumption of the capacity to drive such specialized universities, and to drive the knowledge economy and globalization. Hence it is argued for deliberation as a means for Africa to build on its own knowledge in a synergistic manner with global sources of knowledge.

Internationalization strategies for higher education This article leads from the proposition that a discussion on building national capacity with the support of international research networks cannot be discussed without

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contextualizing it within internationalization strategies (Knight 2008). It must be pointed out, at this juncture, that internationalization has come to mean different things to different stakeholder groups. The importance of internationalization strategies is clearly enunciated by Munck et al. in their 2010 study. They suggest that the motivation for international cooperation and partnerships began in Europe, during the 1980s only, when such cooperation, exchanges and internationalization in education and research moved from being a reactive to a proactive strategic issue. In addition, De Wit (1999) and Stensaker et al. (2008) state that internationalization in Europe moved from a philosophy of developing capacity for the South to that of internationalization as the preferred way to generate ‘mainstream’ knowledge. Hence the focus, scope and content of internationalization evolved substantially. Munck et al. (2010) lend support to this argument when they point out that the stimulus for this shift in focus and content was globalization itself, the increasing competition in higher education and the commercialization as well as cross-border delivery of higher education.

In this context, Altbach, Reisberg, and Rumbley (2009) emphasize, in their report to the UNESCO World Conference on Higher Education, the fact that the twenty-first century realities have magnified the importance of the global context. They argue that ‘Universities have always been affected by international trends and to a certain degree operated within a broader international community of academic institutions, scholars, and research. For some this is seen as stimulating and innovative, for others, it is an “assault” on national identity’ (iv). Munck et al. (2010) agree that internationalization, as a form of embracing and finding a place in globalization, may have unintended negative consequences. In this regard, they propose possible reasons for the resistance towards internationalization from countries in the South in particular. They maintain that internationalization often equates narrowly to a university policy aimed at what Samoff and Carroll (2004), whom they cite (see Munck et al. 2010, 3), highlight, the South dispatching people to, while receiving knowledge from the North, or ‘West knows Best’ (Munck et al. 2010, 3). They claim that internationalization is intrinsic to wider policy positions where contested constructs such as the global knowledge economy, participation, partnership, interdependence, sustainability and cooperation dominate. We posit, in the light of this argument, that such constructs need to be interrogated as to their real meaning and what they translate into, given that they remain key terms in setting the framework for internationalization. We also agree with the contentions presented that possible contestation of internationalization can be linked to enduring views around colonialism as well as modernism where so-called enlightened global assimilation frustrated Southern institutions. Munck et al. (2010) remind us of the shifts in African universities, which moved from being universal paeans of learning towards Africanization and local relevance and then more proximately to integration in the global order, but under conditions of tied dependency and dominance to the overriding world order. Mkandawire and Soludo (1999) indicate that particularly African policy makers should look to strong strategies, which achieve the kinds of cooperation that they want, as well as initiate a major interrogation around mobilizing domestic resources in tandem with development assistance so that African resources are optimized and Africa claims ownership of its own development. Nowhere are these debates more appropriate than in African universities, which need to reassert their intellectual provenance and leadership in this all-important realm of the epistemology of knowledge and the attendant applications thereof.

Having considered internationalization and introduced the notion of partnerships as an element of internationalization, the authors reflect on matters closer to the SANPAD

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approach and consider the knowledge network paradigm, North–South partnerships within this paradigm and the role of development cooperation in effecting these processes and outcomes.

Knowledge network paradigm and North–South partnerships The knowledge network paradigm (Borgatti and Foster 2003) could be considered a seductive vision, often appearing as a creative way to solve many research and development issues. While many in the global South might succumb to this alluring vision of networks, especially where some data suggest the benefits thereof, it can be argued that knowledge networks are not without challenges. The knowledge network paradigm is often facilitated through partnerships, alliances, social capital and embedded contextual relationships (Borgatti and Foster 2003, 991), which come with a range of contestations and power plays.

Notwithstanding this, knowledge generation and research, like many other types of resource generation, are increasingly happening in international networks. Given the competitive nature of much of the capitalistic-driven world, it is posited that the custodians of knowledge and research need to become proactive and attuned ‘players’ in such networks so as not to be left behind (Hoebink, Van Der Lans, and Padayachee 2003). It is in the context of such networks and partnerships that the authors frame this inquiry using conceptual and empirical data that substantiate a position from the South in relation to knowledge networks that were initially supported through development assistance of the North.

Bradley (2007) makes a conceptual link between partnerships and knowledge networks and highlights how such networks have often created a hegemonic influence over Southern actors. This cautionary note about hegemony is supported by Kulati (2001), Kuanda (2001) and Turner (2001), who reinforce this argument. They express their suspicions that not only do international partnerships sometimes dictate unilateral terms, at the expense of the agendas of the South, but also that the South should not simply take on and assimilate global trends without their own conscious balancing with local realities and objectives. Turner (2001) argues that, at times, the partnerships mimic a new form of ‘colonialism’ where donors and partners have often been criticized for imposing values that are remote from the everyday experiences of the developing country partner. Kulati (2001), Kuanda (2001) and Turner (2001) therefore advocate for engagements that are shaped through strong commitments to local ownership, which, in turn, allow the terms of engagement to be more even and balanced.

Badat (2001) pragmatically points out that South Africa, after its privations and isolation, had to respond to the shifts in a world that has been recast as global and internationalized. Also, South Africa, to rebuild the centres of legitimacy and to reconstruct the country after the ruination of apartheid, must enter the global order in such a way as to bring about transformation of the South African society within globalized terms of engagement. Hoebink, Van der Lans, and Padayachee (2003) in this regard explore how institutions in higher education, at the centre of these knowledge networks, do have options in terms of the way in which they can respond. They conclude that despite the fears of ‘academic colonialism’, there needs to be a real appreciation that the exchange of funds, knowledge, skills and thinking is nevertheless required to overcome the ‘old and at the same time the new divide’ (Hoebink, Van der Lans, and Padayachee 2003, 17). Global partnerships are fruitful areas to create new networks, but networks themselves need help: they have to be filled with substantive content,

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by an authentic exchange of experiences, knowledge and training, and by a sharing of mutual needs and concerns, and not limited to loosely located capacity building, but a capacity building that can be evidenced in real development outcomes. Bradley (2007, 2) suggests that ‘To make …partnerships work and to achieve real developing country “ownership”, there has to be a shift away from the previous relatively passive mindset, common among aid recipients, towards active leadership in the development of “home-grown” development programmes’.

From the body of literature that exists based on ideology, conceptualization and empirical realities, we state that knowledge networks and the manifestations of partnerships within them are part of the current and future academic landscape. Despite overarching complexities that appear to work against the equality of the networks, there is mounting evidence, as reviewed, that points to the manner in which knowledge networks can be constituted. Knowledge networks are better able to succeed if one takes into account the following: the strength of the national plans or objectives; ensuring mechanisms for balancing power towards locally conceptualized and owned programmes; making use of unique niches of epistemology and using networks as vehicles for building mutually reinforcing knowledge and experience; entering capacity development domains with the confidence of knowing that knowledge and capacity development can indeed flow both ways, and are not a prerogative of the North/ West to ‘share with’ the South.

This review of research universities, internationalization and global scientific collaboration is a chosen framework to show that a small-scale programme such as SANPAD/SANTRUST builds intellectual infrastructure in an incremental manner. It is against this theoretical backdrop that we present the case of SANPAD/SANTRUST as a suitable example of a South-led capacity development initiative that has grown knowledge networks within the broader context of internationalization.

Research design This study, the SANPAD/SANTRUST experience over 15 years, is the focus of this inquiry, used a single intrinsic case study as design type (Stake 1995; Yin 2009) which is located in the constructivist paradigm. We were interested in understanding and presenting the particular case of SANPAD/SANTRUST to illustrate the specificities of the PhD research capacity-building programme. It allowed for an in-depth analysis of the programme within the given setting in the real-world context, capturing the voices of research participants who have participated directly in the programme. We problematized the case by reflecting on a number of issues that come to the fore regarding research capacity-building programmes; for example, epistemological gaps and limited capacities, disproportionateness between Northern and Southern institutions, and empowerment rhetoric. These data were sourced from a purposive sample of PhD candidates, supervisors and facilitators, after each workshop, over a period of 15 years. These programme feedback documents and observational field notes were analyzed for content.

The case of SANPAD Within the democratic dispensation of South Africa, the SANPAD programme might well have come at the right time, given the deficits that higher education faced. Not only were there critical equality, redress and transformation issues to address, there

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was the all-important work of engendering confidence in the new generation of academics, who found themselves in a transitional system where universities, as much as society and government, urgently needed to undo the damage that had been done by apartheid at the intersections of race, class and gender. Studies such as those by Habib and Morrow (2007) revealed that the academic profile of South Africa was dominated by ageing white males and that by 2015 almost half of the professoriate in South Africa would have retired. Habib and Morrow (2007, 120) also argue that ‘The challenge currently confronting leaders and managers of South Africa’s higher education and research institutions is to … advance towards a more racially representative knowledge system without irreparably damaging research productivity’.

The recent study commissioned by the Academy of Science for South Africa (2010), entitled ‘The PhD study: an evidenced based study on how to meet the demands for high level skills in an emerging economy’, bears testimony to these very same deep concerns that will certainly have a significant impact on South Africa’s development as a whole and its global competitiveness. South Africa produces only 26 PhD graduates per year (2007 being the year of reference) per million of the population. This is currently well below the number of doctoral graduates required to support a competitive knowledgebased economy. Thus, building capacity and equality at all levels, and especially at doctoral level, is a priority. However, the current higher education system is struggling with the many capacity constraints of the inherited apartheid system. It must strive for global competitiveness, and also focus on transformation within these challenging contexts, as well as on social justice and democracy. Programmes such as SANPAD are thus seen as critical to building doctoral capacity, especially in terms of affirming and prioritizing Black women candidates.

The World Bank report on PhDs in Africa (2008) also reflects on strategies for achieving advancement in higher education. The report reveals that locally prioritized and developed programmes with low cost linkages to international networks are better able to succeed and be sustained in that they are embedded in the postgraduate centres and professional networks that are around them. To this end, the way forward for South Africa is abundantly clear. South Africa needs more staff at the highest level of academic qualification and experience, and, to build transformation and a reconfigured demographic profile in South African higher education, South Africa needs more Black women in the higher echelons of the sector. In consideration of these brief observations in relation to the doctoral education within the remit of this article, it is suggested that the SANPAD programme, ‘Facilitating the building of research capacity in South Africa’, was developed at an appropriate time in South Africa’s higher education trajectory. To highlight some of the critical dimensions of the SANPAD programme, which directly address the gaps within doctoral education, Hoebink, Van der Lans, and Padayachee (2003, 11) report as follows: the programme ‘builds capacity by supporting and involving individuals, and through collaboration between institutions and between South Africa and the Netherlands … with “the target group … mainly post graduate students and underprepared researchers” … particularly those from under-represented groups and institutions … Black female researchers form a clear majority’.

From aid to innovation Post 1994, South Africa dealt with the abovementioned issues, such as transformation, redress, capacity building and local knowledge generation, through aid models, which are relevant for this inquiry. The new democracy was exposed to technical expertise

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that drew on international experiences/benchmarking, and donor funding allowed South Africa to implement separate projects in niche areas such as local economic development, education, democracy and governance, justice, youth, local government, private sector development, gender and women’s empowerment (Republic of South Africa 2003). The contribution of aid to the knowledge economy and scientific development and scholarship was also enhanced through programmes such as the EU Science and Technology Agreement of 1997 under the Framework Programmes on scientific and technological cooperation. Aid is conceptualized, in this article, as both a relationship and funding flow between two parties – within this scope – a nation-state of the North providing aid to a beneficiary programme within South Africa (hence the North–South dimension is emphasized in the article). Aid is deliberately used to signal a term that highlights the unequal, donor-driven, welfare approach to development assistance (Helleiner 2000). ‘The donor is the leader, and decides on the level of aid. The recipient is the follower’ (Tarp 2000, 5). Tarp (2000) does not nullify the noble motives and advances that have happened within the donor–recipient divide but highlights that it is the systemic forces of aid that provide the key to the power imbalances of such relationships.

Within the spirit of such agreements for aid, the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, after a mission by the then Minister for Development Cooperation, Jan Pronk, in 1996, acknowledged the value of a collaborative academic programme that would explore alternatives in development through research while concurrently addressing research capacity development for historically disadvantaged groups (Hoebink, Van der Lans, and Padayachee 2003). In 1997, the South Africa–Netherlands Research Programme on Alternatives in Development (SANPAD) was established. The challenge of such a partnership and its implementation was recognized given the unequal partners and the structural inequalities and power dynamics between Northern and Southern institutions. It is for these reasons that the SANPAD model searched for alternative modes of delivery that moved the process forward. To illustrate the point, it was appropriate to understand the capacity development process as a continuum with different levels of power, influence and responsibilities among donors and recipients and how SANPAD navigated its position on the continuum to develop its model for sustainable capacity development. Munishi (2004, 624) developed such a continuum model (Figure 1), which illustrates how capacity development can be analyzed in terms of the structure of the relationship between donors and recipients. The model was appropriated for the SANPAD-SANTRUST experience.

SANPAD is a case that has had fifteen years of empirical evidence as a knowledge network that has tried ‘to give answers to the challenges of globalization and the global divide in research capacity and knowledge creation’ (Hoebink, Van der Lans, and Padayachee 2003, 17). We focused on one key programme area of a larger programme, ‘Facilitating the building of research capacity in South Africa, the Research Capacity Initiative for PhD proposal development’. The programme, as it exists currently, has been viewed as an experiment in capacity building and is presented as an example of innovation. It is, however, considered a work in progress, as it adapts to the dynamics of context, sector, and the developing edges of innovation.

The SANPAD programme The Programme has evolved to provide six modularized contact sessions, where the learning of doctoral candidates is facilitated by international teams of scholars but led by South

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Figure 1. Power, influence and responsibility in donor-recipient capacity-building relationships (adapted from Munishi 2004, 624).

African academics, through the central components of a Doctoral Proposal and, through association, the components of a doctorate/PhD proper. The candidates work on an evolving proposal in a task-based manner between modules and are in cyber contact with members of the facilitation team. At the same time as the candidates work through the modularized programme, their supervisors are also included in the programme through formal sessions for the first and last modules, as well as more organically between modules, where candidates, through their own agency, explore their learning on the programme with their supervisors. Supervisors attend some joint sessions with candidates, but also follow their own Supervisory Practices module. This is described as an embedded supervisor programme. A selection of qualitative data, from the case study, has been provided as Appendix 2 to present the views of candidates and supervisors.

The model is a triangular one, with candidate, supervisor and SANPAD facilitators working in a connected manner to develop scholarship and to arrive at a rigorous, benchmarked research proposal. Appendix 1 provides a graphical representation of the triangular model as well as the curriculum framework. For fifteen years, first supported

by Dutch funds and now sustained directly through university commissions, annual cohorts have been drawn from all 23 universities of South Africa and reflect the demographics of South Africa, in terms of including a majority of Black women. By their own admission, they are fledgling academics, who have rough ideas of what the research process is about. The so-called ‘liminal space’ that they enter when they join the SANPAD programme soon becomes an anchor for their early scholarship. This is

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achieved through the programme construction itself and through their supervisors being part of the process and that there is a powerful model of peer learning and accountability.

There is also the international academy of facilitators who also find themselves in a similar liminal space as they teach collaboratively, organically and extensively, drawing from the vast resources of their own careers and the candidates in front of them. This has happened against the backdrop of evolving from aid to local innovation.

Phase 1 was SANPAD’s first attempts at building research capacity for doctoral candidates, which were mainly ad hoc workshops that focused on ‘stand-alone’ workshops around research methodologies. Candidates attended these as disparate events, and received knowledge from facilitators who were mainly from the Netherlands.

‘The languages of instruction … and research emanate[d] largely from the North’ (Teferra and Greijn 2010). Supervisors were not included in the development of the candidates’ research thinking, and integration of the workshop learning with the research proposal and dissertation was not specifically articulated. The paradigm was leadership by the donor, who also offered received knowledge from the North with candidates as ‘receptacles of learning’. The programme was evaluated and fault lines along the areas mentioned above were found to be inhibitory to the success of the programme.

Phase 2 saw a shift to South African leadership, but still within a joint committee between the Netherlands and South Africa as one of the main governance structures.

The programme was executed and implemented by experienced South Africans from the higher education sector. The programme was shaped around a curriculum, which was developed consultatively within the South African context, and culminated in an output (a PhD proposal). South African scholars co-facilitated with those from the Netherlands. The learning from Phase 2 was that supervisors were not included in the programme and expressed their anger, reservations and disappointment in not being part of such an important part of ‘their’ candidates’ doctoral learning and development. Doctoral candidates felt unconnected to their supervisors when they took their new learning back to their supervisors. There were tensions between approaches to the now-developed curriculum: should proposals follow more the Dutch way or the South African way? With these issues highlighted by monitoring and evaluation, the supervisors’ programme was then driven by the South African custodians in partnership with Dutch counterparts: first located separately from the candidates, and then through programme learning, using the hybrid of both joint and separated sessions. Stronger South African ownership and leadership were in place as well as increasing spaces for the candidates’ voices, who now saw the programme as more equitably delivered, and witnessed the programme assuming a stronger South African identity, yet still within the global knowledge network.

In Phase 3, the local, South-driven ownership was firmly established. Each module was formulated with aims and learning outcomes, around which facilitators could build their facilitation, and the curriculum was thus refined further. The programme’s track record of delivering high quality research proposals and candidates who were graduating with PhDs in 3–4 years as opposed to the national average of 7–8 years became more firmly established in both the South African as well as the global knowledge networks.

The SANTRUST programme One of the most convincing elements of SANPAD, in terms of growing knowledge networks and achieving innovation, is the sustainability of the programme, under the entity of SANTRUST.

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Innovation privileges ‘the development of human perceptual capacity itself’ (Bastalich 2010, 849) over the more traditional scientific and technological dimensions. This is reinforced by Hannen, English, and Silver (1999), who offer that innovation is not part of giant spaces of international advancements and mould-breaking, but is methods or models, new to their own situation, planned and designed for improvements. It is, as Soete (2009) claims, using new configurations of current knowledge in applied contexts, with novel, context-situated solutions emerging as endogenous innovation. Such innovation, because it arises in developing contexts, is often supported through funding, technical and international cooperation. At a higher level, it is a systems initiative responding to particular needs of the national context (Silver 1999).

Universities now directly commission and authorize this innovative programme, using domestic resource mobilization and not development assistance, for candidates in Africa. Sustainability beyond aid is very rare in South Africa, other than if the functions, as we saw in Munishi (2004), are absorbed into government departments (Technical Assistance Unit, South Africa, is an example).

SANTRUST has been accepted by the higher education sector as offering a model that can work alongside universities to address some of the doctoral research capacity gaps of South Africa, and beyond the borders, the African continent.

Concluding remarks This article has considered the paradigms of internationalization and knowledge networks within higher education with a specific focus on partnerships, particularly that of a case of development cooperation for doctoral research capacity building, which involved both a Northern and Southern partner and onward to a model that is gaining traction in the South African doctoral capacity-building sector. The article debates the merits of the case of North to South networked partnerships and extends the case by showing how local ownership led not only to a well-timed and responsive programme, within development cooperation, but also to a sustainable programme, which matured from development support, and retains the international knowledge networks that are inherently part of the foundation of the programme. The empirical case does confirm the scholarship of Borgatti and Forster (2003) on knowledge networks specifically in relation to embedded contextual factors contributing to forging the shape and textures of the knowledge network of SANPAD to SANTRUST. It is argued that before South Africa, as a developing country, entertains the idea of a research university as has been defined in the literature, there are other critical areas of redress, capacity, access and equality that need to be attended to. South Africa has spent nineteen years (and beyond) dismantling a privileged, exclusionary and oppressive education system while searching for transformational solutions. Bringing in an expensive, elitist option (Mohrman et al. 2007), despite the pressures of global innovation and the knowledge economy, would be misaligned to the more proximate and pressing issues of a young democracy. We suggest that incremental models of excellence have been built and need to be built through combining international knowledge with local knowledge in contextually-appropriate ways. These should include elements of synergistic capacity development employing the modalities that Knight (2008) addresses when she defines internationalization strategies.

The innovative SANTRUST programme holds some meaningful lessons and examples for how capacity can be built using international research networks.

Leaders from the higher education sector, within a transforming nation, creatively harnessed the resources of development with the ingenuity of the local ownership,

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creating, on a modest but replicable scale, a model which extends beyond the borders of the country itself. Amongst such lessons is the depth and breadth of capacity that can be created through both planned and organic knowledge networks that include peer learning, through a cohort model, as well as critical role players such as supervisors and experts from the international academy. At the level of development cooperation, it gives credence to principles evinced at Busan (2011) that sustainable development results are the end goal of effective cooperation.

Given the cohort model, further inquiries will have to address how research and knowledge networks built over the duration of the programme could translate into enduring trans-institutional and even transnational research, even when the cohort take up their place at the most senior levels of research in the country. Furthermore, opportunities for such a programme in terms of tapping into technological advances, which could lead to the extension of such a systems model, within open distance learning, across Africa and other emerging countries will also need additional research. Such research would also have to include face-to-face proximity of role models and peers that bring about the real evolution of scholarship at this delicate time between the master’s degree and the doctorate. These concerns indicate that the SANTRUST programme is still under-theorized but offers rich longitudinal empirical data to illuminate not only the areas for greater learning, but also those that might render even more robust and transformational knowledge networks.

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Appendix 1: Graphic of the SANPAD/SANTRUST Core Curriculum Framework

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Appendix 2 Data from candidates’ feedback It is amazing how much my eyes have been opened. I benefitted so much. The workshop is designed in a way that will assist me both with the thesis and writing articles. I am ecstatic and very grateful to the Prof’. I wish we could have been given leave – that we immediately put our ideas on paper before we are going to have a divided focus (office work and study).

Lots of collaboration and co-operative learning used. As students we were given chance to say our problems that were immediately addressed. Clarified on how a research proposal should be structured (what needs to be included in all chapters of the thesis).

Students often carry out research without the skills to embark on it. Course empowers the research students to carry out their research better and to become better future supervisors.

I now have a good idea of what goes into my chapters, able to place my reading into context, my objective has been transformed as well, I have been able to narrow my research, something I have been struggling with for a year.

The PhD process is a lonely, hard and long one – there are many pitfalls/sliproads on this road.

Santrust has given me a road map (my GPS) to guide me though this process. The wealth of knowledge that Santrust brought to this process is appreciated.

This is an excellent programme to assist PhD students focus and fast track their Doctoral studies.

I think all students should have this opportunity to go through something like this.

To me this programme provides a lifetime opportunity to help one shape one’s research capabilities. It was a wonderful experience which ushered new insights into my research skills and knowledge. I feel overwhelmed with pride and joy for being part of this incredible initiative.

I learnt a lot more that I could imagine.

Data from supervisor feedback The sessions are very valuable for supervisors to reflectively engage with fellow supervisors and students. This is good for their practice. I definitely support the continuation of the same, particularly for fresher/newer supervisors.

Highly valuable – it had a great impact on my personal and department practice. The workshops should continue, I was able to learn a lot about collegial practices and discuss my own problems with the group.

Most useful was the Supervisor/Student agreement.

It has been very useful. There has been a tremendous improvement in the students’ work, particularly the quality put into the research proposal; and the understanding of educational theories and paradigms.

My interaction with my Doctoral student was definitely enhanced based on this programme – better output, and mutually improved understanding of the Supervision process and practice.

Santrust is still in contact with the Candidates through its tracking of their progress. Five of the Candidates already have their Doctorates and the rest are close to completion.