MENTORSHIP,
INTERNATIONALISING
RESEARCH AND THE NRF
RATING
Jane Carruthers
Professor Emeritus
University of South Africa
Research Associate: Centre
For Invasion Biology,
Stellenbosch University
Mentoring and the NRF rating
Unlike promotions up the university ranks, a
rating is not related to institutional politics,
departmental point-scoring or bureaucratic
aggrandizement.
It is objective, under one’s personal control, and
thus a goal worth striving for.
Evaluation of academic excellence –
mentoring can be extremely effective
because it is a shared enterprise.
Having the high regard of my peers, fellow
researchers whose opinion I respect and
admire
Recognition that my research has been
original, insightful, changed people’s
perceptions
Satisfaction of having made a contribution
to knowledge nationally and internationally
internationally
1. Why is mentoring necessary and why is
the NRF rating process so appropriate for
it?
An NRF rating is THE most important measure of peer evaluation of
research impact in South Africa and every university needs a structured
mentoring system to encourage top quality research – and recognition for
that research – from its staff.
Postgraduate, indeed all, students should be alerted to the system and
recognise the value of participating in it.
Despite prominence in academic ‘conversation’ circles, it is surprising how
little understood the rating process is, and how very many applications are
inadequate or sub-optimal because early and appropriate mentoring and
assistance from senior academics and colleagues is lacking, as is (often)
institutional support.
2. Why is mentoring necessary?
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Long-term planning is required
Strategic research agenda needs planning
The application form is complicated
A need to present oneself honestly, without under- or
over-selling research impact and achievements (often
unrealistically high self-rating of importance and impact
of research – mentor can be honest)
• Difficult (and lonely) to do alone
• Anxiety/misunderstanding/misinformation around the
process
Background to NRF rating
• 1984 Previous rating system for individuals in
sciences and engineering via the Foundation for
Research Development
• 1999 National Research Foundation established
• 2002 NRF rating instituted for social sciences
and humanities
Purpose?
• Stimulate and enhance research (defined as original investigation
undertaken to gain knowledge and/or enhance understanding)
• Raise quality of research
• Raise international profile of country and
institution
• Affirm personal research profile – and improve it
at regular intervals
• Benchmark South African research and
researchers and institutions in terms of excellence
• Accord with international best practice
Rating for personal development and
recognition of academic worth
•
•
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Reward for creative, innovative work
Recognition of hard work
Pleasure of peer appreciation
Contribute to intellectual growth and diversity in
South Africa
• Change public attitudes through research quality
and reach
• Promote the best objective scholarly research
THIS IS THE GOAL OF EVERY UNIVERSITY
What is a rating?
• Anonymous peer review (8-10 peers required)
• Assessment of the quality of recently published peer- reviewed
research output (books, chapters in books, journal articles,
conference proceedings, ‘other significant’ output, patents)
• Assessment of the impact of published research output
• Period evaluated: preceding eight years – regular update
• Administered (not adjudicated) by the National Research
Foundation
Academic profile of rating
21 421 total academics/researchers in South Africa
2 959 total number of NRF-rated
academics/researchers in 23 universities and other
academic institutions
11.32% percentage rated of total in 2011/2012
(2009/10 =10.67%, 2010/2011 = 11.25)
The 5 different rating categories
A
Leading international researcher (total 99)
B
Internationally acclaimed researcher (total 615)
C
Established researcher (total 1 724)
P
Prestigious awardee (total 16)
Y
Promising young researcher (total 483)
L
22 (no longer current)
TOTAL 2 959
Of the top 11 SA universities
• 1st = UCT with 412 RR, 38.86% of staff total of
1 055
• 11th = Unisa with 133 RR, 8.78% of staff total
of 1 515
• 9th = NWU with 144 RR, 12.06% of staff total of
1 194
MENTORING TOWARDS AN
INTERNATIONAL PROFILE AND
PRODUCING HIGH QUALITY WORK
•
Encouragement to students/staff to be situated in a research field that is
personally pleasurable, rewarding, obsessional, lifelong, has potential for growth
and conceptual development
•
Share networks and international connections
•
Engagement with a research topic that is of wide and significant interest – adding
to an established body of knowledge, a promising research field
•
Ideas, concepts and research with international purchase and relevance – more
than the ‘local’
•
Encouragement of a strong need to ‘make a difference’ and contribute
•
Encouragement to work hard … and work effectively
Regularly re-consider and reflect on research
philosophy and trajectory and planning for
mentor and mentee – updated every 5/6
years.
• How do you want to contribute?
• Make yourself visible
• How will your work extend into the future?
• Seek prizes and other awards, join editorial boards and
disciplinary societies
• Offer to review other people’s work
Networking and
collaborating for both mentor
and mentee (academic citizenship)
• Make contact with others in your research area
• Suggest co-authorship of articles (conference papers
could be a start)
• Position yourself as a leader – even if you work harder
than the others on the paper with you
• Reply timeously to emails, never miss a deadline
Putting research ‘out there’
Interact with international colleagues at an individual/personal
level – engage with their work, keep up a correspondence, note
their professional achievements, where are they situated etc. and
let them know what you are doing.
Identify your research audience.
Join network and H-Net groups and make your presence felt.
Do not maintain a low profile. Set up personal website and use it.
Research is not a lonely, selfish or isolating pursuit: just the
opposite!
Reading & publishing
• Keep abreast of latest literature, engage with it,
write responses, add appropriate research to others.
• Subscribe to all the important and relevant journals.
• Be aware of Scopus, ISI and other ‘rating’ and ‘measuring’ tools.
• Target your research to high quality international journals and
monitor readership and references to your work.
• Enjoy and welcome the peer reviewing process, engage with it and
learn from critique.
• Volunteer for editorial boards and editing work – great way to
discover what’s happening in your field and network with peer
reviewers etc.
• Offer to edit or co-edit special issues.
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Get to know all the relevant journals in your field
Ascertain which are the ‘top’ journals
Compare local and international journals
Become familiar with the leading scholars and
their work
Consult books and book chapters carefully
Comb the web
Publish in the journals of the academic
communities you want to have access to your
work – you will not be noticed otherwise
Identify people with whom you can co-author
Conferences, symposia
& other meetings
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Attend the most important and strategic.
Give presentations and be visible and engaged.
Negotiate panels with international peers.
Don’t regard meetings as travel destinations but
networking opportunities and a chance to ‘sell’ yourself
and, more importantly, your research.
• Arrange conferences and other meetings with peers and
fellow scholars. Encourage others.
• Accept keynote invitations and be inclusive.
• Volunteer / offer seminar presentations and attend
those by others.
• Don’t chase just any conference: plan strategically
• Conferences are academic communities so make sure that you
want to belong to them
• Plan around conferences in your specialised field or disciplinary
areas
• Be sure to attend conferences of your scholarly society
• Participate in presentations: ask questions, make a contribution,
offer your thinking
• Let people remember you as a scholar who engages
RESEARCH MENTORING
SHOULD BE MUTUALLY
BENEFICIAL AND
A LEARNING AND
ENRICHMENT PROCESS FOR
ALL PARTIES INVOLVED
THE NRF RATING PROCESS IS
AN IDEAL SITUATION IN
WHICH TO ACHIEVE THIS
• Mentor and mentee share the aim of rating
and/or rating improvement (although different
levels)
• Power relations are flattened and goals – and
the whole enterprise – are shared
• Research desiderata are common ones
• Collegial, collaborative and non-combative
relationship
• Many aspects of mentorship to explore, e.g.
publication, networking, conferences etc.
MENTOR AND MENTEE WILL BE REQUIRED
TO THINK THROUGH ISSUES THAT YOU
PERSONAL
NEED TO
CONFRONTBENEFIT
IN AN ACADEMIC
CAREER AND THAT ARE PART OF AN AGENDA
OF GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT
WHAT HAVE YOU ACHIEVED?
WHERE ARE YOU IN YOUR CAREER?
WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT TO ACHIEVE?
HOW WILL YOU ACHIEVE IT?
YOU WILL RECEIVE FEEDBACK
Thank you!
‘Y’ category researcher
‘Young researchers (40 years or younger), who have held the doctorate or equivalent
qualification for less than five years at the time of application, and who are
recognised as having the potential to establish themselves as researchers within a
five-year period after evaluation, based on their performance and productivity as
researchers during their doctoral studies and/or early post-doctoral careers.’
• Y 1:
‘A young researcher (within 5 years from PhD) who is recognised by all
reviewers as having the potential (demonstrated by research products) to
establish him/herself as a researcher with some of them indicating that he/she
has the potential to become a future leader in his/her field.’
• Y 2:
‘A researcher in this group is recognised by all or the overriding majority of
reviewers as having the potential to establish him/herself as a researcher
(demonstrated by recent research products).’
‘P’ CATEGORY RESEARCHER:
‘Young researchers (normally younger than 35 years of age), who
have held the doctorate or equivalent qualification for less than
five years at the time of application, and who, on the basis of
exceptional potential demonstrated in their published doctoral
work and/or their research outputs in their early post-doctoral
careers are considered likely to become future international leaders
in their field.’
Researchers in this group are recognised by all or the overwhelming majority of
reviewers as having demonstrated the potential of becoming future
international leaders in their field on the basis of exceptional research
performance and output from their doctoral and/or early post-doctoral
research careers.
‘C’ CATEGORY RESEARCHER
‘Established researchers with a sustained recent record of productivity
in the field who are recognised by their peers as having produced a body
of quality work, the core of which has coherence and attests to ongoing
engagement with the field, demonstrated the ability to conceptualise
problems, and apply research methods to investigating them.’
• C 1:
‘While all reviewers concur that the applicant is an established researcher (as
described), some of them indicate that he/she already enjoys considerable
international recognition for his/her high quality recent research outputs.’
• C 2:
‘All or the overriding majority of reviewers are firmly convinced that the applicant
is an established researcher.’
• C 3:
‘Most of the reviewers concur that the applicant is an established researcher.’
‘B’ CATEGORY RESEARCHER
‘Researchers who enjoy considerable international recognition by their
peers for the high quality and impact of their recent research
outputs.’
• B 1:
‘All reviewers concur that the applicant enjoys considerable international
recognition for the high quality and impact of his/her recent research outputs,
with some of them indicating that he/she is a leading international scholar in the
field.’
• B 2:
‘All or the overriding majority of reviewers are firmly convinced that the
applicant enjoys considerable international recognition for the high quality and
impact of his/her recent research outputs.’
• B 3:
‘Most of the reviewers are convinced that the applicant enjoys considerable
international recognition for the high quality and impact of his/her recent
research outputs.’
‘A’ CATEGORY RESEARCHER
‘Researchers who are unequivocally recognised by their peers as
leading international scholars in their field for the high quality
and impact of their recent research outputs.’
• A 1:
‘A researcher in this group is recognised by all reviewers as a
leading scholar in his/her field internationally for the high
quality and wide impact (i.e. beyond a narrow field of
specialisation) of his/her recent research outputs.’
• A 2:
‘A researcher in this group is recognised by the overriding
majority of reviewers as a leading scholar in his/her field
internationally for the high quality and impact (either wide or
confined) of his/her recent research outputs.’