Meeting the researchers
Meeting the researchers
Postdoctoral Researchers with VUT delegation
Puleng Maphisa
The Vaal University of Technology (VUT) Research Directorate hosted its first Postdoctoral Research Fellowship induction on Friday, 11 October 2019 at Quest Conference Centre. This event is being used to welcome new Postdoctoral Fellows to VUT and encourage them to do more research in order to enhance the institution research outputs and postgraduate supervision capacity.
This induction will be hosted yearly to involve more Fellows from different faculties and departments and also to grow a research culture at VUT.
The Director of Research, Dr Simphiwe Nelana, said that with all the topics presented by postdoctoral fellows, he hoped the researchers would form collaborations in order to empower VUT with research.
“Research should be a habit at VUT, we need to make it a constructive tool for by so doing we will grow the number of researchers and postgraduates,” he said.
Postdoctoral fellows were given an opportunity to present on their research and fields of interest. A questions and answers session was also held and supervisors and postdoctoral fellows got an opportunity to answer and give feedback. The induction was well received as it allowed networking and a sharing of knowledge.
Ms Rebecca Fani, a VUT librarian in the Faculty of Management Science supported Dr Nelana when she said that the VUT library assists postdoctoral students and it is open 24 hours a day to support researchers with information for quality output as well as letters for borrower’s privileges at other university libraries.
“We as librarians train researchers to be information-literate and assist with National Research Foundation searches,” she said.
In closing Ms Fani said that the library is the heart of the university, researchers should utilise it more often. She said that master’s students are allowed to borrow 12 books, doctorate students 15 books for a period of 30 days while staff members are permitted to take 20 books for a period of 90 days.