At the North-West University (NWU), research not only plays a pivotal role in the daily functioning, but it is also where the university helps to change the world.
Beyond the NWU’s multitude of research centres of excellence, chairs, units, focus areas and niche areas, its hosted research entities and commercial research entities, the university also delivered 727 master’s-degree students and 261 doctoral students in 2021.
The scope of their research was vast, with all eight of the faculties at the NWU producing research both fascinating and implementable, innovative and extraordinary.
In 2022, this trend has continued, and all for the betterment of society. Doctorates from the NWU have tackled a variety of issues: from looking to enhance the protection of South African social workers against client violence, how to manage children with developmental delays and disabilities in rural child and youth care centres, to the formation of a new drug delivery platform for improved viral vaccines by using Rift Valley fever as a case study.
One researcher looked at the dietary intake and breast cancer risk of black women residing in Soweto, while others looked beyond our borders, as one researcher showed, by developing a conceptual framework for knowledge management in the water supply sector of Botswana. Speaking of water, another doctorate student devised a conceptual model for a management system of marine oil spills in South Africa.
Other studies included an examination of women's political participation in the south-west of Nigeria and an exploration of the national security strategy of India as an instrument of foreign policy towards Pakistan. When it comes to research at the NWU, there are no borders.
But, although the current crop of NWU researchers is delivering exemplary results, it is also ensuring that future generations of South Africans will continue to investigate, study and explore.
There is a well-documented shortage of technical, engineering and technology skills in South Africa that is threatening the future well-being of the country. It is a dire outlook, one which the NWU is addressing through its Science, Engineering, Technology and Health (SETH) Academy. This academy trains future engineers while they are still at school. Learners follow the normal school curriculum, but will also be given extra classes in SETH subjects.
Further aims of the SETH Academy are to increase the output of engineering graduates and to increase the number of graduates from previously disadvantaged groups as well as female graduates.
With unceasing research output of the highest quality and initiatives such as the SETH Academy, one cannot help but ask what wonders future dates at the NWU hold.
