Search Page

A summer school entitled "From Principles to Practice: Higher education policy and research project management" was organized in Cape Town for masters and PhD students in the field of higher education studies. Practical examples and tips were given on how to navigate the field of competitive funding applications, the so-called "dirty" world of research.

The country’s anti-corruption agency is partnering with the National Universities Commission, or NUC, to sponsor 20 doctoral theses engaging with anti-corruption issues over the next 10 years and to introduce an anti-corruption course for all students at undergraduate level. The Head of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission said university students constituted a strategic target for anti-corruption training and awareness which is the reason for their support of anti-corruption research and scholarship and the anti-corruption course for all university undergraduates.

A foreign graduate’s research papers were published under the name of his supervisor at the University of Putrajaya. The Ministry of Education has opened an investigation on this matter, encouraging other students who have been “robbed” to lodge a complaint with the ministry.

Many institutions in Australia provide training programmes for their Ph.D. students but these programmes vary in quality, content and reach. The temptation to judge a researcher’s performance for grant funding by the number of published research papers and the focus on the quantity over quality is very strong. They are not just driving bad behaviour for researchers but are also creating a market for criminals to enter scholarly publishing.