The Research Development and Postgraduate department recently held a day’s annual workshop for postgraduate students and researchers at CUT to share tactics and methods on preparing and presenting the best research paper. 

Research experts and managers from different faculties also attended the event to share their knowledge.  The main objective of this event is to ensure that postgraduate students are equipped with the necessary information and support in their doctoral journey. Postgraduates and doctoral student learnt about the research process, the road map, scientific writing, securing funding, and managing the project to completion. Prof. Laetus Lategan, Dean of Research and Innovation, spoke about the three important activities when doing research: identifying the problem, finding solutions and identifying new knowledge. 

He further advised the new researchers to not only add new knowledge to research, but also learn to extend the knowledge of the recipients through application, transfer, and entrepreneurship to close the gap. “We believe in research that is relevant, applicable, and implementable. For us to advance our societies, we should engage in research that investigates real life problems and find solutions to those problems. Professors don’t have answers to everything; otherwise why would they ask students to do research,” he said. Prof. Ulrich Holzbaur from Aalen University in Germany presented on Project Management for Research (er) Education and he said that projects plays a pivotal role in research, which aims at increasing the knowledge and understanding for some subjects. He further said that knowledge about the project and project management skills are an essential part of research education. “In a research- oriented environment we must plan beyond the project and develop the system from the management of individual project to a process of systematically managing projects as it will support the overall quality of research and education.” 

Other presenters were Ms Edith Sempe, research officer from the department of Research and Development who presented on the road map, looking at the critical success factors that researchers have to take into consideration. Dr Mohammed Mostafa, Research Manager in the faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, spoke about scientific writing, stating that scientist need to be better writers as writing is the most common form of scientific communication.  Rev. Andre Oosthuizen who recently completed his DTech, shared his eight- year experience and journey of his postgraduate studies while Prof. Willie du Preez and Ms Zenobia Louw- research officer: NRF activities, focused on how funding challenges affect researchers and what they should do to secure funds for their research. Ms Dora Ackerman, Deputy University Librarian, presented nine building blocks, which are considered important to successfully integrate the library information systems into research. 

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Postgraduates and doctoral students are tasked to discuss some of the issues presented to them and find solutions to challenges faced.