• Research development
  • Emerging Researcher Programme
  • Project for the Enhancement of Research Capacity (PERC)
  • Mellon Visiting Mentors Project
  • Postgraduate supervision programme
• Project for the Enhancement of Research Capacity (PERC)

• Emerging Researcher Programme
• Project for the Enhancement of Research Capacity (PERC)
• Mellon Visiting Mentors Project
• Postgraduate supervision programme

Overview

PERC refers to a cluster of support activities for academic staff and is part of a university-wide commitment to initiate and foster programmes that develop researchers.

The project operates in three distinct but related areas.

• Awarding of grants in "the Knowledge Project" and supporting successful grantees
• Assisting staff with obtaining NRF ratings
• Broadly promoting mid-career staff development in the area of research by stimulating and supporting research and publication and particularly encouraging the development of research initiatives which reflect the University’s location in Africa and in a more broadly developing context. In this respect, PERC will actively be promoting UCT’s Afropolitan vision of being ‘a brilliant example’ of a “developing-world university”.

The Knowledge Project

In 2008 the Centre for African Studies, with Africana Studies at Brown University and the Centre for Caribbean Thought at the University of the West Indies initiated an epistemological adventure which had as its goal that “research should be stimulated, encouraged and supported to produce new knowledge, which is transformative in that it is appropriate to our position in SA, on the continent and in the world”. This vision provided the inspiration for a staff development initiative with Carnegie Corporation funding and it was able to award formal grants. In 2009 applications were invited and four awards (of R150,000 each) were made. The successful applicants were: Dr Lillian Artz (Gender, Health and Justice Research Unit, Faculty of Health Sciences) for: Women’s Pathways to Crime: Developing a Critical South African Criminology; Professor Astrid Jarre (Marine Research Institute: Faculty of Science) for: Fishers Knowledge for Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries Management; Professor Leslie London (School of Public Health and Family Medicine: Faculty of Health Sciences) for: A Learning Network for the Right to Health: An opportunity for Civil Society and academic collaboration to contextualise human rights within an African perspective; Dr Lucia Thesen (The Postgraduate Literacies Project, Centre for Higher Education Development) for:The postgraduate condition: writing, risk and the making of new knowledge.

In 2010 four further grants were awarded. The successful candidates and their respective projects are:

• Information technology at the margins: methodological tools for understanding, designing and developing context-appropriate digital systems in the global South (Associate Professor Ulrike Rivett, Department of Civil Engineering)
• Challenging dominant theories of urban health: proposal for the first phase of a research programme on the relationship between the urban environment and health in Cape Town (Mr Warren Smit, African Centre for Cities, School of Architecture and Planning)
• Pioneering sustainable solutions to human-baboon conflict in the Cape Peninsula: local answers for a continental problem (Associate Professor Justin O’Riain, Baboon Research Unit)
• Design and Making Epistemology: In Search of an Afrocentric Perspective via the African Informal Settlement (Dr Tom Sanya, School of Architecture, Planning and Geomatics)

In the first half of 2011 yet three more grants were made.

• Transforming engineering curricula in Africa: A case study in Chemical Engineering, linking the University of Cape Town with Moi University, Kenya and University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (Associate Professor, Jenni Case, Department of Chemical Engineering)
• New Knowledge Systems in Post-Genocide and Post-Conflict Studies: An Afropolitan Dialogue (Professor Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, Department of Psychology)
• A study to explore the experiences of community disability workers in rural communities in South Africa, Malawi and Botswana (Associate Professor, Theresa Lorenzo, Department of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences)

The emphasis of the grants has shifted towards promoting collaborative, team-based research with partner researchers in Africa. PERC grantees currently have links with Botswana, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. UCT researchers are encouraged to visit and work with their colleagues in Africa while the grant also funds visits to UCT by Africa research partners.

The process of applying for a PERC grant is developmental and the Co-ordinator is responsible for working with and assisting applicants during the process of applying and thereafter (whether the applicants were successful or not). Support is in the form of workshops and more practically in face-to-face small group or individual settings during which the research process is taken forward. Successful grants are selected in terms of their commitment to UCT’s Afropolitan vision (in terms of methodology and epistemology) and in terms of transformation equity concerns which place a premium on the inclusion and support of historically disadvantaged groupings. To access the PERC grant application form, please click here.

NRF Ratings

The Research Office currently offers (through Christina Pather and her colleagues) administrative support to staff wishing to apply for NRF rating. UCT currently has the highest number of top-rated NRF researchers in South Africa and is intent on maintaining this position. The current PERC Co-ordinator will assist staff to plan their NRF applications and will also provide input in crafting applications so that they best align with the NRF evaluation criteria. Less than 25% of all South African tertiary staff is NRF-rated and it takes some time to develop a profile that will succeed in obtaining a rating. The PERC co-ordinator will also provide assistance with career planning for mid-career staff. For further information see, NRF Ratings.

Mid-Career Staff Development

UCT is a research-oriented and driven university. PERC’s commitment to research excellence builds on the Emerging Researcher Programme (which began in 2003) to assist staff to consolidate their academic careers and to build their research productivity. The PERC co-ordinator provides staff with the opportunity to discuss research challenges and career planning. Interested staff should contact the co-ordinator directly (021 650 2433 or Robert.Morrell@uct.ac.za).

The PERC co-ordinator has a wide brief to provide support-workshops, to plan research projects, to develop cross-faculty co-operation, to encourage new research projects and particularly to promote collaboration that enhances UCT’s Afropolitan vision. UCT aspires to be a model developing-world university. “Such a university looks to both the world and its own country and continent to identify its tasks and challenges; it combines excellent research (for that is the key to South Africa’s and the African continent’s future) with a commitment to do research that improves the condition of the people of the country and continent and to unlock their potential.” The PERC co-ordinator will respond and support organic initiatives that emerge from among academics, academic departments and faculties.

Amongst the activities that are offered are seminars organised by Dr Lesley Green, Department of Social Anthropology, the co-ordinator of the Sawyer Seminar Series. The Series that focuses on ‘Contested Ecologies’ asks ‘how different knowledges and ways of knowing present challenges for democratic processes, and post-colonial universities’. Dr Green has constituted a PERC working group which meets regularly to utilize the intellectual resources of the Series and which will be working to contribute to PERC’s research goals. In September 2011 Dr Green organised and hosted a workshop on ‘Multiple Natures and Deliberative Democracies in the Global South’ at Mont Fleur, Stellenbosch. The keynote address (‘Economic Development and Cosmopolitics in the Brazilian Rainforest’) was delivered by Professor Eduardo Viveiros de Castro (National Museum, Rio de Janeiro).

In August the Sawyer/PERC Contested Ecologies Database was launched at the Research Office(Monday Paper News Article). The database comprises of over 400 articles all of which focus on contestations over knowledge and emanate from the global south, specifically Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The database was produced by a small team of researchers working with Dr Green. The database will be available to UCT staff on the Vula website. Access to the site requires a password which can be obtained from Sven Ragaller at: sven.ragaller@uct.ac.za

PERC offers workshops that support midcareer staff and minister to UCT’s Afropolitan goal. The following seminars and workshops were held in 2011.

• Professor Carolyn Hamilton, (SARChI Professor of Archive and Public Culture, Department of Social Anthropology), ‘Gendered Ways Onwards & Upwards: a Workshop on Gender-alert Academic Career Planning in the Research-intensive University’.
• Associate Professor Anne Pope (Department of Private Law), ‘The Form and Substance of Ethics Clearance at UCT for Research Involving Human Participants’.
• Professor Robert Morrell (Research Office), ‘NRF rating Workshop – Writing your Application’.
• Professor Raewyn Connell (University of Sydney), ‘Southern Theory, An Introduction’.
• Professor Rebecca Boden (University of Wales) and Professor Debbie Epstein (Cardiff University), ‘The Research Proposal Surgery’.
• Prof Robert Mattes (Department of Political Studies), Prof Di McIntyre (Health Economics Unit), Associate Prof Mills Soko (Graduate School of Business), ‘Teaching Postgraduate Courses on and for Africa: a Panel Discussion’.
• Associate Professor Shamil Jeppie, (Institute for the Humanities in Africa (HUMA)), ‘Doing Research in Africa – Africa-Centred Research.’
• Professor Irwin Brown (Department of Information Systems), ‘Doing Research in Africa – Africa-Centred Research’.

Staff

The co-ordinator of PERC is Professor Robert Morrell who formally took up the position in January 2010. Prior to that he worked at the Universities of Transkei and Durban-Westville before serving for 20 years in the Faculty of Education at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. His research interests include Gender and Education and Men and Masculinities. His contact details are Robert.Morrell@uct.ac.za and telephone (021) 650 2433.

Contact us

Prof Robert Morrell
PERC Co-ordinator
Tel: 021 650 2433

Ms Judith Rix
Admin Assistant
Tel: 021 650 5152

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