2011-NMMU-Research-Report - Research Management - Nelson ...

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NMMU Research and Innovation Report 2011 - Research Excellence
The role of the Chair is to provide academic leadership, conduct
research, publish, supervise postgraduate students, ensure academic
engagement and facilitate learning processes within the field of HIV
and AIDS. An advisory committee supports the Chair in providing
strategic advice on the research programme. The second year has
been exciting, enabling consolidation of work undertaken in the first
year, while opening up opportunities for several new initiatives in the
field of HIV and AIDS Education.
Addressing HIV and AIDS in South Africa could be seen as having
had an about-turn with the Government’s new invigorated approach
to addressing the epidemic. Such an about-turn is augmented
and accelerated through the core business of universities, i.e.
teaching, research and engagement. Research in particular has a
key role to play in contributing to knowledge production, but also
to social change, by locating social science research more often
in a participatory paradigm, which has a social change agenda.
Engaging, for example, in visual participatory research, with the
participants themselves determining the focus of the research,
shaping the research process, making their voices heard, envisaging
relevant solutions to their problems and taking up their own agency,
could contribute to social change. Social science research then not
only produces knowledge, but also contributes to agency and making
a difference, especially in the lives of the people in the communities
we as universities serve. In doing so, we “democratise” research and
contribute to transformation in South Africa in the age of AIDS. This
conceptual framework frames the research of the Chair and is inline
with what the new Charter for Humanities and Social Sciences (DHET,
2011) proposes. Working within this framework, 2011 saw projects
being rolled out and one edited book, eight chapters and one article
being produced, with another book, four chapters and four articles
accepted for publication in 2012.
Central to the work of the Chair is the HIV and AIDS Education
Community of Practice, supported by the HEAIDS Programme under
the auspices of Higher Education South Africa. A workshop, Research
Method and Pedagogy Using Participatory Visual Methodologies,
held over two days at the NMMU North Campus Conference Centre,
brought together more than 50 academics from different higher
education institutions all over South Africa, teaching and researching
in the field of HIV and AIDS Education. The workshop focused on visual
participatory methodologies and a publication, Using a different lens
for HIV and AIDS Education, emanated from the workshop, aiming to
extend this scholarship of research and teaching in the field of HIV
and AIDS education and research in South Africa.
Various research and engagement projects funded by the NRF and
SSHRC were continued with and a new proposal submitted to the
NRF (successful). Eleven conference papers were read with several
publications emanating from them. Two conferences: What difference
does this make? The arts, youth and HIV and AIDS (Durban) and the
HIV and AIDS Education Conference: Envisioning Africa without HIV and
AIDS: The role of Education (Zanzibar); and one workshop: HIV and AIDS
Education Community of Practice Symposium, Research Method and
Pedagogy: Using Participatory Visual Methodologies were co-hosted.
Five postgraduate students are underway with their Doctoral studies.
One postdoctoral fellow, Dr Mathabo Khau, extends the work of the
Chair through engagement in projects and her numerous publications.
Prof Mitchell, from McGill University (Montreal, CA), leading a panel
discussion on Visual Participatory Methodologies at the 2011 HIV and
AIDS Education Community of Practice Symposium, held at NMMU.
VWSA-DAAD International Chair
in Automotive Engineering
Prof Theo van Niekerk
The Chair in Automotive Engineering is a cooperation arrangement
between NMMU’s School of Engineering, NMMU’s Office for
International Education, supported by the German Academic
Exchange Service (DAAD) and a leading automotive manufacturer,
VWSA.
The main aim of the Chair is to facilitate increased innovation and
international competitiveness of the integrated motor manufacturing