About

In keeping with our mandate as a service College, the College of Graduate Studies is tasked with playing a supportive role by providing institutional level leadership in the optimisation of the catalytic niche areas across all UNISA spaces, with specific emphasis on infusing the CNAs into our research and postgraduate ecosystems. Over the course of 2023, we did extensive work on designing the CGS scaffolded approach to catalytic niche area optimisation and, as part of this approach, we launched the CGS-facilitated catalytic niche area working groups in November 2023. These working groups will be a core component of the CGS institutional-level catalytic niche area leadership, and the implementation of the groups will gain traction in 2024.

In the spirit of our commitment to multi, inter, and transdisciplinary approaches to research, we departed from the conviction that all Colleges, and all disciplines, could play a meaningful role in shaping the institutional level response to the CNAs. Our consultative processes thus started with a comprehensive sensitisation drive where we aimed to expose Colleges to the different options for contribution to multi, inter, and transdisciplinary CNA processes. Thus, while different disciplines will take ownership of conceptualising discipline-specific responses to the CNAs, the CGS is playing a crucial role in ensuring institution-wide buy-in into all the CNAs, and in shaping rigorous, multidisciplinary, and institutional level CNA responses.

All Colleges are encouraged to participate in the CGS-facilitated catalytic niche area working groups and they are invited to identify catalytic niche area champions in their spaces. By participating in the CGS catalytic niche area working groups, the College champions will be exposed to broader ways of engaging with the niche areas. As they report back to their Colleges, this may well spark new avenues for College engagement in already identified or previously marginalised niche areas. In addition to its generative potential, the College champions will also alert the CGS catalytic niche area working groups when their Colleges need additional niche area optimisation support (such as workshops, inputs from external stakeholders or experts, assistance with niche area research funding applications).

The working groups will meet at regular intervals to ensure that momentum is maintained in all the CNAs. They will facilitate multidisciplinary engagement with each catalytic niche area, and this will enrich engagement and ensure that the catalytic niche area response is scholarly comprehensive, rich and rigorous. They will offer a space to share ideas amongst colleagues who may not otherwise be aware of work that is being done on the same catalytic niche area in other spaces at UNISA. This will avoid a silo approach, allow for the pooling of resources, and generate collaboration opportunities. The CGS-facilitated CNA working groups will offer a space where challenges can be voiced and discussed, which will facilitate institutional level troubleshooting capacity to ensure that catalytic niche area engagements do not stall when challenges are encountered. By hosting these working groups at institutional level, we will create opportunities for inter-CNA interaction where points of cross-fertilisation, alignment, and overlaps can be identified and capitalised upon for maximal CNA optimisation.