The SRA Symposium - College of Medicine

Papers
Respondents’ evaluations of incentives and barriers to research/scholarship were very similar to
their evaluations of incentives/barriers to the pursuit of external funding. Personal commitment
to research/scholarship, achieving career goals, presenting research findings, likelihood of attracting
additional funds and the benefits of research to teaching were leading incentives for academic
staff in their pursuit of research/scholarship and external funding (Figure 5). Workload issues
(teaching, advising and service), inadequate internal budgets, lack of mentoring and collaboration,
excessive requirements to develop proposals and limited time to write proposals were leading
perceived barriers to research/scholarship and the pursuit of external funding (Figure 6).
Academic staff indicated in Figure 7 that an institutional policy governing teaching, research and
service and how they are assessed, departmental flexibility with workload and targeted external
funding opportunities would be most beneficial to support their research and funding endeavors.
Mentoring and proposal development support would also be useful to them. Lecturers and
Senior Lecturers reported having the greatest needs in all categories provided in the survey except
targeted alerts. In this category, all Senior Lecturers, Associate and Full Professors reported having
equal needs for additional information.
The data on research outputs is indicated in Table 4. Most respondents reported publishing 1 to
3 articles in peer-reviewed and other publications before and since 2003. As expected, Professors
and Associate Professor had the highest publication record of about 9 and 4 articles prior to 2003
and since 2003, respectively. Senior Lecturers had 7 and 3 articles prior to 2003 and since 2003,
respectively. Only Lecturers had increased their publication record since 2003.
Focusing on “Development”
The low intensity of research investment in Botswana is especially worrying in light of the large
and widening gap between R&D intensities in developing countries and industrialized countries.
The recent findings of the Botswana UN Human Development Report for 2005 indicated
that research institutions had failed to deliver and that Botswana needed to re-learn how to build
research capacity. There is therefore an urgent need to find ways to reverse the current trends in
funding for research, as well as more efficiently utilize current funds. The proposed research funding
agency – the Botswana Research and Science Funding Agency (BRSFA) is expected to change
the research landscape in Botswana by providing more funding for research that would strengthen
basic and applied research, stimulate innovation, leverage private sector funds and guide science
and technology in the country to achieve human and economic development needs.
There is little doubt that strong public support to research will be needed for many decades into
the future in Botswana. A critical examination is required of the workload of UB academic staff so
that they are able to devote time needed to conduct research and write grant proposals in order to
meet the criteria of BRSFA and deliver quality research outputs. An institutional policy on teaching,
research and service that not only clearly indicates the assessment of these categories for career
development, but also the relative importance of each for individual researchers. In addition,
a university commitment to mentoring, recognition of collaborative research programs and provision
of incentives would be required to create a conducive research environment. These needs are
especially critical now in Botswana as public support of research through BRSFA is proposed to be
competitive and performance based.
138 2005 Symposium Proceedings Book