Divisions:
KFD
The White Paper on Higher Education (1997)[1] sets out the agenda for the transformation of Higher Education from the segregated, inequitable and highly inefficient apartheid institutions towards a single national system that serves both individual and collective needs. In line with international practice, The White Paper casts community engagement as one of the pillars of the higher education system, along with teaching and learning, and research.
The National Research Foundation (NRF) recognises that the generation of knowledge and advancement of science[2], as well as the development of human capacity, are central activities in the pursuit of its mandate to contribute to the improvement of the quality of life of all people in South Africa. Historically the NRF has provided limited support to researchers in order to facilitate the dissemination and transfer of knowledge. The NRF has not however, supported a programme or dedicated an instrument of funding for community engagement which would specifically address the need for a deeper understanding of the interplay of processes and relationships involved in the transfers of knowledge and innovations; or the ways in which new knowledge is generated through interaction with communities.
The Community Engagement programme has thus been established to support research and activities aimed at improving our understanding of the full spectrum of community engagement and the suite of activities that this implies. This may for the purposes of this call, include inter alia: negotiating the terrain of knowledge production as a site of multiple processes and relations, interrogating the ways in which tacit knowledge is surfaced in the complex process of community engagement; and assessing the impact for, and changes in communities as a result of newly coded knowledge.
An inaugural call for proposals in Community Engagement occurred in 2010, for funding over 3 years. 17 successful awards were made to applicants from the Higher Education sector.
As a complementary path of enquiry, the National Research Foundation also entered into a Memorandum of Agreement with the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) in 2009, to undertake a study on “Investigating the Contribution of University-Community-Based Interaction to Building a National System of Innovation”. This study focuses on the nature of university responsiveness to communities in the new global context and will interrogate how different universities and disciplinary fields conceptualise social responsiveness in practice. The study will also investigate the diverse forms of community interaction, in terms of their knowledge intensity, outcomes and beneficiaries.
The findings of this study will serve to strengthen, nuance and refine the community engagement programme as it evolves as an instrument of funding.
The following call for proposals will be in the second half of 2012 for funding in 2013 - 2015
If you have any queries, please contact Tracy Klarenbeek (Acting Programme Director) on Tracy@nrf.ac.za
[1]South Africa. 1997. White Paper 3: A programme for the transformation of higher education. Notice 1196 of 1997. Government Gazette, 386(18207)1:55, August 15.
[2]This framework adopts an inclusive definition of science and scholarly endeavour, encompassing the humanities, social sciences and the natural sciences