Working Outside the Box: A “Public Squares” Initiative to Advance Transdisciplinary Research at Stellenbosch University
Universities can play a key role in generating knowledge to address complex issues in our society. Yet for academics to become agents of change within and beyond institutions, they need to learn to cross boundaries, work collaboratively, and raise money to sustain their endeavours. Through the Public Squares development programme, Stellenbosch University aims to catalyse, produce and externally fund research for impact – Research that helps sustain resilient economies, promote health and wellbeing, cultivate arts and culture, make the world greener, and foster a more socially cohesive society. Drawing on expertise in research, public engagement, and grant writing, we provide research teams with targeted training, facilitated brainstorming sessions and constructive feedback on grant proposals.
Stellenbosch University’s strategic research areas (SRAs) and its research “cityscape”
Stellenbosch University has identified five broad strategic research areas that describe its institutional research strengths, as illustrated below:
Together, these five areas serve as the overarching ‘umbrella’ themes for our research, under which we wish to develop a number of problem-focused, trans-disciplinary, impactful research entities/groups. To achieve this goal, we need to focus on unique areas in which SU has developed expertise and in which real impact can be achieved through interconnectedness, cross-faculty collaboration, and a transdisciplinary approach.
At SU, we use the analogy of a cityscape to frame research initiatives under the five SRAs1. In our research cityscape, we have historic, established structures (e.g. traditional academic departments and faculties), quainter, medium-sized centres (e.g. our type 1 research entities, Research Chairs and their groups), and also ‘high-rises’, such as SU’s School for Data Science and Computational Thinking, the School for Climate Studies, and CERI (i.e. our well-established larger Type 2 and Type 3 research entities). Our cityscape however also needs to evolve in response to changes in the global knowledge landscape and with the emergence of new societal challenges. It is for this reason that we wish to maintain and establish roads and connections between existing buildings and establish new “public squares” (or “play parks”) in our research cityscape. These are places where people from different disciplinary backgrounds can gather and interact to brainstorm the establishment of new trans-disciplinary2 entities that may well evolve into the high-rises of the future.
VISION
Our vision is to develop research capacity, spark collaborative work, support impactful ideas, generate competitive grant proposals, and foster fresh transdisciplinary research areas at Stellenbosch University.
MISSION
Our mission is to build skills in collaborative research, foster knowledge across disciplinary and societal boundaries, develop competitive grant proposals, and source external funding to cultivate new transdisciplinary focal areas.