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UCT Research Report '11
164
To be a preferred partner on the
international stage – and a leader in the
global South – requires careful monitoring
of the international research landscape,
meticulous planning in order to take
advantage of the appropriate opportunities
for co-operation, anda significant investment
of resources. To stay competitive, UCT’s
Research Office – under the auspices
of the university’s two deputy vice-
chancellors responsible for research and
internationalisation – is building capacity
to plan and support UCT’s international
collaborations to best effect.
The basic features of globally competitive universities
include making significant contributions to the
advancement of knowledge through research and
teaching the most innovative curricula with the most
innovative pedagogical methods under the most conducive
circumstances. Research becomes an integral component
of undergraduate teaching and is responsive to global and
local conditions and challenges.
Universities also need to produce graduates who stand out
because of their success in intensely competitive arenas,
both during their education and – more importantly – after
graduation. In addition, the long-term vision for creating
world-class universities needs to align with a country’s
overall economic and social development strategy.
Excellence is not only about achieving outstanding results
with outstanding students, but also about measuring how
much value is added by addressing the specific learning
needs of an increasingly diverse student population.
Given this broad range of considerations, it has become
critical to develop benchmarks to assess the different
areas of UCT activity. To this end, UCT has joined the
Times Higher Education (THE)
World University Rankings
survey platform group, aimed at developing a rounded
picture of what the university as a higher education
institution does, and how well it does it. The aim of the
group is to develop a ranking system that builds on the
existing THE ranking, but is properly targeted, with a
large and representative sample that reflects views from
all corners of the world. This improved ranking system
will enable universities to compare themselves with peers
rather than global averages in the future, thus converting
data into useful management information.
In 2011, the international rankings debate was sharpened
by reports on ‘research competencies’ at UCT, which
were identified through Elsevier’s SciVal Spotlight
tool – a
customised web-based tool that analyses bibliometric
data and enables the university to evaluate aspects of
its research performance. SciVal is particularly adept
at identifying inter-disciplinary research, work that does
not fit within conventional disciplinary silos, but which is
making a major global research impact. The tool can also
identify trends – research areas that are new, emerging,
and booming, and those that are stable or stagnating. It
is like a sensitive research thermometer, measuring the
temperature of academic research.
Research competencies: UCT a
world leader
A SciVal Spotlight analysis of UCT’s research output from
2007 to 2011 indicated that it is amongst the world leaders
in many of the 97 ‘competencies’ or inter-disciplinary
areas of research excellence, that were identified for UCT.
Of these 97 competencies, 18 are ‘distinctive’ while the
rest are ‘emerging’. In order for a competency to become
distinctive it must reach the minimum global market size
in terms of number of fractionalised articles included,
UCT stakes its claim on the
international research
landscape
“The basic features of globally
competitive universities include
making significant contributions
to the advancement of knowledge
through research and teaching
the most innovative curricula with
the most innovative pedagogical
methods under themost conducive
circumstances.”