“We cannot claim to have covered all the bases concerning the support and empowerment of early career researchers and academics, but we are getting there,” Dr Phethiwe Matutu, Chief Executive Officer at Universities South Africa (USAf), so stated in a conversation exploring universities’ performance in creating conducive environments for emerging scholars to thrive.
“However, compared to when I was fulfilling my own postgraduate study ambitions, I could say that the sector is making good progress in ensuring that support tools and critical knowledge resources are available,” she said. “While I cannot speak for individual universities in detail, I can reflect on what we, as the representative body of universities, have done to contribute in this regard.”