Presentation at the Operational Planning Workshop, Department of Business Management, University of South Africa (Unisa), 6-7 February 2017, Pretoria, South Africa

1. Presentation at the
Operational Planning Workshop, Department of Business Management,
University of South Africa (Unisa)
6-7 February 2017, Pretoria
Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/buildings-sky-clouds-123780/
Building a research
culture in a
#highered institution
By Paul Prinsloo
Research Professor in Open Distance Learning

2. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I do not own the copyright of any of the images in this
presentation. I hereby acknowledge the original copyright
and licensing regime of every image and reference used.
All the images used in this presentation have been sourced
from Google and were labeled for non-commercial reuse.
This work (excluding the images) is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0
International License

3. Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/empty-
abandoned-messy-grunge-scene-863118/
How do we think about building a
research culture in a context where

4. Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/empty-
abandoned-messy-grunge-scene-863118/
• The playing field is not level – but gendered, raced
and embedded in geopolitical and disciplinary
contestations and networks
• Criteria such as citations are increasingly suspect as
citations, reputation and impact are not necessarily
linked
• Your gravitas as a researcher is increasingly
dependent on the amount of funding you secure
• Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) are accused of
mission and ethics creep and the excruciating
impact of the proliferation of reporting to an
increasing number of stakeholders

5. Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/empty-
abandoned-messy-grunge-scene-863118/
Some examples…

6. Page credit:
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/femal
e-professors-pay-price-academic-citizenship

7. Page credit: https://www.buzzfeed.com/kellyoakes/if-
male-scientists-were-written-about-like-
women?utm_term=.mjerpnKMm#.gnPAKXZQ2

8. Page credit:
https://aminer.org/mostinfluentialscholar/ml

9. Page credit:
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjo
urnal.pone.0166149&from=timeline&isappinstalled=0

10. Page credit: https://www.theguardian.com/higher-
education-network/2017/jan/27/unsackable-senior-staff-
make-life-even-harder-for-junior-
academics?CMP=share_btn_tw

11. Page credit:
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-
university-rankings/funding-for-innovation-ranking-2016

12. Page credit:
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/312/577
9/1441

13. Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/confused-
muddled-illogical-880735/
There is therefore a real danger that our strategies and
interventions are misguided due to misunderstanding the
field; underestimating the complexities of becoming and
being a researcher-in-context; and/or succumbing to the
often empty institutional rhetoric regarding building a
research culture

14. Some preliminary remarks
Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/lost-places-
stairs-staircase-1943678/

15. Context is everything
Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/pier-wooden-
lake-ocean-sea-quiet-407252/
Disclaimer: I acknowledge the impact of my
own intersectionality of race, gender, age,
role, privilege and academic/disciplinary
expertise/field on making sense of ‘building a
research culture’

16. Research looks different between…
Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/pier-wooden-
lake-ocean-sea-quiet-407252/
• ‘Types’ of higher education institutions – eg distance
education, comprehensive institutions & research intensive
institutions
• Disciplines – eg mathematics, economics and sociology
• Where you are in your career and where others are in their
careers
• Different intersections of race, age, gender, family
responsibilities, teaching and supervision loads & networks
(whether scholarly, institutional-political, industry)

17. Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/building-
reflection-window-glass-922529/
Institutions and individuals often see their rankings &
citations as a true reflection of their standing and
gravitas in a particular field.
These reflections are, however, approximations and
skewed representations due to the structures and
epistemologies underpinning and upholding the
mirrors

18. Image credit: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon
The increasing number of reporting and auditing
regimes result in researchers feeling as if they are
being constantly watched, monitored and assessed,
even when they are not…

19. Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/logistics-stock-
transport-shipping-852936/
The reality of being a researcher/doing research increasingly
resembles an assembly line with the emphasis being on the
number of boxes produced, and not, necessarily the content
of the boxes

20. Image credit:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/timrich26/3308513067
Doing research and disseminating research findings
constitute a minefield of contesting understandings of
knowledge and knowledge generation in and between
different disciplines, contesting narratives between the
global North and South, a quantification fetish and the
commercialisation of knowledge production and
dissemination

21. Image credit:
http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Dismemberm
ent
Researchers are also
torn between
different initiatives
and pet projects of
the different
portfolios
representing
research, teaching,
community
engagement and
academic
citizenship…

22. Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/cobweb-network-
spin-nature-1576419/
Being, becoming a researcher and doing
research are therefore fragile notions and
enactments and are found at the intersections
of structural, raced and gendered
arrangements in a particular institutional and
geopolitical contexts
Final preliminary remark

23. Image credit:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Football_pitc
h_spanish_metric.svg
Understanding developing and
supporting research as ‘field’

24. Image credit:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wembley_e
nggermatch.jpg
The way management sees the field
of research
• Institutional reputation, league tables, & standing
and funding
• Attracting high quality scholars and students

25. Image credit:
http://maxpixel.freegreatpicture.com/Field-Ball-Feet-
Player-Sport-Soccer-Football-1141186
The way researchers see the field of
research
• Messy
• Slippery
• Competitive
• Biased i.e.
quantitative/
qualitative, Global
North vs Global South,
editors and reviewers
as gatekeepers

26. Image credit:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Women's_So
ccer_-_USA_vs_Japan_(1).jpg
The way researchers see the publishing
process
• Increasingly competitive
• Dependent on the interpretation
of rules by different referees
• Different sets of rules depending
on the field
• The limited space/time to score a
goal

27. Image credit:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2-3-2-
3_formation.svg
The first step to building a research
culture is a critical and caring
understanding of the field

28. Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lauren_Cheney_on_the_ball.jpg
Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2-3-2-3_formation.svg
Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Referee_Mark_Geiger_advantage.jpg
Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Samuel_Radlinger_(Hannover_96)_-_Austria_U-
21_(02).jpg
Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tom_Cleverley_goal_vs_MLS_All-Stars.jpg
Image credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bartek2205/4483232496
• The player: Her skills &
dispositions
• The field: Discipline, institution –
what is acceptable
• Her position on the field:
(In)experience, quantitative/
qualitative
• The referee – Rules &
implementation of the rules
• The goal - definition
• The prize – what is the prize?
How to score, what are the rules, according to
whom and what is the prize?

29. [(habitus)(capital)] + field = practice/agency
My habitus - how my
context (past and present)
(and my understanding
thereof) shaped and still
shape me
The capital that I have
acquired in the process
(or not)
The field – the
context in which I
find myself in. This
is not a neutral
space, but is, itself,
shaped by various
structures, and
agencies of
individuals and
collectives
My practice/agency and my
understanding thereof…
29
Adapted from Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: a social critique of the judgment of taste. Richard Nice
(trans). Cambridge: Harvard University Press
Exploring researcher agency

30. The player: Her context, history &
dispositions
• Gender, race, socio-economic circumstances (past and
present)
• Locus of control, self-efficacy
• Academic background, standing and networks (past and
present)
• Parental/care responsibilities
• Research expertise and understanding of the field
• Quantitative and/or qualitative/mixed methods

31. Her position on the field
• Departmental/institutional
position/location
• Career trajectory
• Disciplinary context
• Institutional context and delivery modes
• Teaching and research expectations and
workloads
• Team composition and team role
• The state of the field –
enabling/disempowering
• What the other players expect of
her/how the other players see her

32. The referee – rules & implementation
of the rules
Multiple levels of refereeing:
• Disciplinary & inter/trans disciplinary gatekeepers
• Networks that include and exclude
• Journal editors
• Reviewers
Multiple sets of rules:
• Disciplinary/ epistemological
• Technical
• Research methodologies
• Disciplinary traditions and conventions
• Publication conventions (eg referencing styles)

33. The goal - definition
• Publication in a preferred or accredited
journal – ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’
• Monographs
• Chapters in books
• Conference presentations
Let us also consider…
• Alternative digital forms of scholarship e.g. blogs, sustained
engagement in micro blogging networks?
• Open and peer reviewed scholarship
• How our current practices of privileging closed (behind pay
wall) publications sustain the commercialisation of our
research

34. Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/berlin-
olympia-1936-1598445/
Guiding pointers for building a
research culture

35. Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/berlin-
olympia-1936-1598445/
Pointer 1
Research productivity is a dynamic,
context-specific, multidimensional
process shaped by mostly
interdependent and mutually
constitutive factors in the nexus between
the institution, the disciplinary locus of
the research, the researcher

36. Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/berlin-
olympia-1936-1598445/
Pointer 2
The researcher has agency, but her
agency is constrained/enabled by other
actors in a particular context

37. Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/berlin-
olympia-1936-1598445/
Pointer 3
Administrative processes for funding and
ethical clearance should be efficient and
as short as possible without
compromising accountability or
transparency

38. Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/berlin-
olympia-1936-1598445/
Pointer 4
Research is an intentional process sustained by
curiosity
• dedication
• serendipity
• the value and quality of networks

39. Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/berlin-
olympia-1936-1598445/
Pointer 5
While the current research imaginary is based on
a technocratic logic and sustained by a
quantification fetish, we must find ways to
embrace, acknowledge and support other forms
of scholarship in an increasingly digital and
networked world

40. Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/cobweb-network-
spin-nature-1576419/
Being, becoming a researcher and doing
research are therefore fragile notions and
enactments and are found at the intersections
of structural, raced and gendered
arrangements in a particular institutional and
geopolitical contexts
(In)conclusion

41. THANK YOU
Paul Prinsloo (Prof)
Research Professor in Open Distance Learning (ODL)
College of Economic and Management Sciences, Office number 3-15, Club 1,
Hazelwood, P O Box 392
Unisa, 0003, Republic of South Africa
T: +27 (0) 12 433 4719 (office)
prinsp@unisa.ac.za
Skype: paul.prinsloo59
Personal blog: http://opendistanceteachingandlearning.wordpress.com
Twitter profile: @14prinsp