RESEARCH DIRECTORATE Prof Dina Burger
The CPUT community is known for its agility and resilience in challenging times, and it started to develop new and innovative ways of doing research.
Above all, much excellent ethical research has continued to be conducted. CPUT celebrated additional NRF-rated researchers, and the institution’s research focused strongly on the six approved research focus areas, making a sound contribution to the knowledge economy of South Africa and beyond. The Research Directorate offered a series of training and capacity development courses, and has logged a record high number of attendees at these. All of these achievements took place under the most difficult circumstances. There was very limited to no access to laboratories, fieldwork almost came
7 to a halt, and access to fellow researchers fostering new partnerships and collaborative opportunities through physical national and international conferences came to an abrupt standstill. Undertaking and harnessing productive scholarly conversations could no longer take place in the same way, and the place of work shifted to the place that used to be home. Above all, researchers suffered the loss of family and friends which has impacted and changed lives in unimaginable ways. However, the CPUT research community is known for its agility and resilience in challenging times, and so it started to develop new and innovative ways of doing research. For instance, training and capacity development courses could be offered online; researchers introduced online seminars and conferences; and academics began participating in international seminars and conferences virtually. Meetings continued to take place through various platforms, and researchers reached out to each other through regular virtual discussions. These are just a few examples of the new ways of work that came about in record time. I would like to therefore dedicate this report to all our researchers and to those in research leadership who have worked so hard to produce new knowledge under such extraordinary difficult circumstances. I would also like to sincerely thank the staff of the Research Directorate who have shown that their commitment to service and support of all our researchers continues, albeit in new and innovative ways.
CAPE PENINSULA UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
The year 2020 will always hold significance for the Research Directorate. During this period of Covid-19, research leadership and management as well as researchers themselves have shown their true CPUT character. An outstanding number of research outputs have been produced. There have been many successes with internal and external research grants, the responsible use of finances, a new and revised series of research and research-related policies, and further implementation of a newly acquired research information management system, Converis.
RESEARCH REPORT 2020
MESSAGE FROM THE DIRECTOR:
