Poorly designed research incentives pose a threat to the quality of work produced by South African universities

[mylesillidge]

South African university funding needs a shake-up

Academic research is crucial to a well-functioning society. It drives technological development and public policy formulation, and perhaps most importantly it underpins teaching at the tertiary level.

Most countries recognise this importance, and have incentives to support academic research. South Africa is no different, with a fair percentage of the R130-billion per year higher education budget supporting academic research through a range of incentives.

 

[DapperDanMan]

Some of our 30-Percenters are about to become 15-Percenters ...

 

[RonSwanson]

Bad science. There is plenty of it, not only in SA.

 

[garyc]

Peer-reviewed publications are directly subsidised, with about R120,000 paid to an institution for a scientific paper, with comparable amounts for conference proceedings and chapters in textbooks.

Except that the postgraduate student who wrote the paper gets none of this, and in fact also has to pay the university for the privilege of being a student.

 

[Sapphiron]

Most universities employ way too many administrators and not enough academics.

The government education policy has made it impossible to meet ridiculous BEE targets, so they keep academic positions vacant and employee administrators that have barely any work to do, to make up the numbers.

They don't have a funding problem, they have a Government policy problem.