Plant Pathology Researchers Attend NRF Forum

BY: .

Three postdoctoral researchers working in the Discipline of Plant Pathology at UKZN attended the National Research Foundation’s 2013 Postdoctoral Research Forum in Stellenbosch. 

It was the first time the researchers were able to attend the annual forum which aims to create a space for discussion and debate around issues facing postdoctoral researchers as well as to enable sharing information and offering support.

The three-day forum was hosted by the Human and Infrastructure Capacity Development (HICD) at Spier Resort in Stellenbosch.

The forum provided useful perspectives on research management from time management to dealing with funding. 

UKZN researchers who attended were Dr Iona Basdew, Dr Benice Sivparsad and Dr Sharmane Naidoo.

This is the third year the event has been held and it attracted more than 200 delegates, mostly post-docs from all over South Africa.

Speaking about the forum, Naidoo, who focuses on plant breeding, said it had been useful in exposing her and her research colleagues to diverse and varying fields of research as well as giving an idea of what kind of work other postdoctoral researchers were interested in and how they went about it.

Naidoo said it was interesting to learn about other universities’ policies regarding postdoctoral researchers supervising Masters and PhD students.

‘The forum was very helpful in allowing us to gauge where UKZN fits into the scheme of university-based, postdoctoral research nationally,’ said Sivparsad, whose research concentrates on wheat, maize and various crop pathogens.

Basdew, whose research focuses on post-harvest fruit diseases, said a helpful aspect of the forum was a list provided which indicated what a postdoctoral researcher should aim to achieve, how to move internationally, how to collaborate on research successfully and how to deal with being in the postdoctoral “holding pattern” where one is not a student any longer but also not an employed academic or researcher either.

The forum provided good advice and techniques to help strike a balance between personal life and research.

‘It was helpful to hear other lecturers and professors talking about their experiences of balancing their personal life with their research,’ said Naidoo. 

Highlights of the forum included a Fellows’ dinner, where mentors were placed at tables of researchers and chaired discussions around various topics. There was also a meet and greet event which followed the format of a “speed-dating” session, where researchers mixed with one another by circulating around a room in six-minute intervals and discussing their research with each other.

The diverse sessions also covered practical aspects such as starting a business by developing a product and selling it.

Naidoo, Sivparsad and Basdew agreed that a driving message of the forum was that of publishing in favour of quality, not quantity, in order to produce research with a higher impact factor. Researchers were encouraged to say yes to every opportunity for furthering the impact of their research and much of the forum provided helpful focus on career development.

Basdew said the forum was refreshing and very beneficial in terms of determining how they went about their research, especially since postdoctoral researchers tended to become isolated if not for opportunities such as this forum.

- Christine Cuénod