RESEARCH IN HIGHER EDUCATION

With the emergence of the knowledge-based economy, countries worldwide are facing immense pressure and an increasing demand to strengthen their research and knowledge production capabilities. This has often implicated the need to review the role and current priorities of higher education in supporting the social-economic development of nations. Research today constitutes a very important facet of higher education. Over the recent years there has been an increasing need to bring teaching and research closer together, the majority of regulatory and accrediting bodies are including clear standards and requirements in relation to research expectations from institutions of higher education granting graduate degrees in particular, whether in relation to having clear research strategies and plans in place or by ensuring faculty and student engagement in research and scholarly activities and providing adequate resources and support to encourage such engagement . Furthermore, institutions have been encouraged to embed research within their graduate curricula and align their research activities to their purpose and society’s overall needs. Thus, Higher education institutions (HEIs) role have been typically associated with three major functions: Research and scholarly activities, instruction, and community engagement. Research and scholarly activities simply refers to the process of generating knowledge; the knowledge generated through research then needs to be disseminated through the process called instruction.

CLICKS throughout the years has designed and delivered numerous training programs to support the development and enhancement of a research culture and climate in Higher Education.

This involves programs that support both the development of institutional research capabilities aimed at primarily at those leading the research agenda of their respective institutions (i.e. Vice Presidents for Research, Deans of Research, Directors of Research Centers, etc.) such as our workshops on ‘Developing and Implementing Research Strategies’ and the ‘Research Performance’ as well as programs designed to strengthen faculty and academics research skills including our popular programs on academic writing and publishing, grant writing, graduate research supervision, etc.

These programs that may either be part of our schedule of public programs or can be delivered in-house range typically from 2 to 5 days.

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CLICKS can support institutions of higher education, looking at positioning themselves as research-driven institutions  by supporting with the:

  • development of research strategies and research support infrastructures in alignment with their own institutional vision and strategic goals.
  • Development of strategic plans for research.
  • development of research related policies and procedures to support the undertaking of research by various stakeholders.
  • Establishment of mechanisms to assess research performance and their impact on teaching and learning, the institution and the society at large.
  • Setting up of research centres and programs based on their strategic priorities and goals.
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