Sundaymail Editor
THE Second Republic has been elaborate in its adoption of research to inform growth strategies. Our Senior Reporter Leroy Dzenga (LD) interviewed Research Council of Zimbabwe (RCZ) acting Executive Director Dr Timothy Marango (TM) on how the institution is contributing to Zimbabwe’s socio-economic growth. Below are excerpts.
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LD: Give us an overview of the RCZ’s functions?
TM: The RCZ was established through an Act of Parliament, the Research Act Chapter 10:22. Our mandate is to promote, direct, supervise and co-ordinate all research in Zimbabwe. We coordinate research not only from the Government, but also private research.
We are also mandated to establish some research institutions, and councils. For example, the Medical Research Council is one of smaller councils that fall under RCZ. We also have other research councils, like our universities. We are also mandated to register foreign researchers. We advise the Government on research issues, so that people and the environment are protected from harmful research.
LD: Research and development are closely related. How has RCZ fed into the National Development Strategy 1 economic blueprint?
TM: I am sure we have cut across all 14 thematic areas. For example, we are funding research in nanotechnology, the findings will assist with areas like the provision of safe water. Nanotechnology is being used in coming up with ways of purifying water.
We want to come back to our breadbasket status. We are funding agriculture biotechnology research. We want to do away with hunger. Hunger is a security issue.
We are also into some research in the social domain. For instance, gender and inclusivity. The issues are very pertinent because they inform governance. We are doing research on most elements of NDS1.
LD: Local universities now have innovation hubs to convert research ideas into marketable products. How is the RCZ working with institutions of higher learning in this regard?
TM: Let me start by explaining that innovation hubs are a space where researchers, innovators and creators come together to formulate ideas. When you talk of innovation, it takes two forms. There are some people who are just creators and there is some innovation that comes out of research. You can’t have creators without researchers. So, we have to bring them together to break the silos that had existed for a long time. We want academics to break out of the theory phase and creators to also put to use knowledge gathered by researchers.
Just like in the idea of devolution, we are devolving not only in terms of space but in terms of social areas. An idea like Pfumvudza/Intwasa had to be refined by researchers. It had existed before but there was a need for its adoption by researchers for it to be replicated at a mass scale.
We are bringing researchers and those with good ideas together through innovation to improve goods and services. This is where innovation hubs come in.
LD: Can you zero-in on the role that RCZ is playing on innovation hubs?
TM: Within the Research Act, we are there to break the silos. Those researches in innovation hubs are part of the Research Council activities. We are saying that there is an issue of sharing research space. It is part of our mandate to ensure that there won’t be closed silos for each innovation hub. It is our role to make sure that there is equipment sharing among innovation hubs. We have limited resources, so if an innovation hub at the University of Zimbabwe buys a specific type of equipment, there is no need for the same equipment to be bought at the Bindura University of Science Education. We coordinate such activities.
If researchers are struggling to access facilities, they can approach us as a regulatory authority and we can be of assistance. There should be no hurdles for those seeking to create knowledge.
LD: There has been concern on the quality of research being submitted as dissertations at various levels. Do you have a monitoring mechanism?
TM: Since the introduction of Education 5.0 in our universities, there has been a deliberate effort to connect players in the industry and researchers affiliated to institutions of higher learning. For instance, if there are students studying electrical engineering, we alert ZERA or ZESA of the existence of such research.
I must say that we are witnessing an improvement in our research. Let me give an example. We now have coal-tar, which is a new innovation that replaces bitumen in road construction. This came through the funding of the RCZ, in collaboration with the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development and the Midlands State University. We have confirmed that the innovation is exclusive to Zimbabwe.
The Government has provided funds to resuscitate part of the plant at Zisco Steel.
We are now monitoring research and if we see promising ideas we fund them.
LD: As the research arm of the Government, what are your research priority areas and how are they determined?
TM: We have four research priority areas and they are in sync with NDS1. The first one is in the social sciences and humanities, where we need to understand how heritage-based development can be structured. We also have a sustainable environment and resource management. There is also the promotion and maintenance of good health, then the important aspect of national security.
Normally people mistake the idea of national security with the issue of arms, but the idea touches on the well-being of Zimbabweans in all aspects. We are working to do away with hunger and diseases that can be dealt with like bilharzia and malaria, which we are close to eradicating. These are security issues. If people are not healthy, it becomes a security concern.
LD: How are priority areas determined?
TM: When we come up with these research priority areas, we don’t just create them from this office, we deal with all stakeholders. Our ministry is in the Office of the President and Cabinet. So, we engage everyone from communities, research institutions and research consultants. We bring them together and discuss. Normally, this is how we feed into the national agenda. It is a multi-stakeholder engagement. We also move around to make sure our research is appropriate to the needs of the people.
LD: We have seen RCZ calling for people with research ideas to apply for financial support. How far has the approach gone, and are there any projects which can be attributed to the call?
TM: We received a lot of applications and currently we are doing six projects. We focused on two areas – minerals technology and agricultural biotechnology. At the moment, we have come up with improved goats, which are being done at Lupane University.
They have come up with an innovation where they use tape measures to weigh goats, instead of using a scale. It is done through an application, if you punch the units on the tape measure, the application can automatically calculate goat weight for you.
Why is this important?
In rural areas, people have a tendency of just looking at a goat and determining value. With the application, they are able to charge specific prices, multiplying the price of a kilogramme and the weight. We believe it can make goat farming more commercially viable. We want research to solve day-to-day problems.
We are also funding research in mineral biotechnology. We decided on that because we have a lot of minerals and we do not want a situation where we get subdued value. We are doing project beneficiation, and the projects are ongoing.
There were eight projects, two in mineral biotechnology and six in agriculture biotechnology.
In these we are doing comparative studies with the Botswana Innovation and Digital Hub, as well as the Malawi National Commission for Science and Technology. So, we have teams in Botswana and Malawi, doing the same research. This will ensure that the results we have are solid.
LD: How is RCZ working with experts attached to institutions outside the country?
TM: We maintain a database of researchers. This allows us to be in constant contact with researchers, and get updates on work they are doing. There are some who have appeared keen to work with the RCZ. The RCZ can assist them when they want to run remote research from their bases, we link them with local researchers of similar interests.
The other method we are using is registration of foreign researchers. We are saying there are fellows who are out there, but are interested in research phenomena at home so we keep tabs on them through registration. Even foreign researchers interested in researching local issues have to deposit their findings with us.
LD: There is a complaint by young researchers that they sometimes come up with solutions to contemporary problems, but their research is gathering dust at our institutions. What strategy does the RCZ have to ensure that ideas being submitted at university do not run obsolete in department drawers?
TM: We have got a platform that we call the Zimbabwe International Research Symposium. In this programme we call young researchers to give us their proposals. That way, we give them prizes and sometimes we even fund.
We call upon young researchers who have got good ideas, our doors are open. The idea why most of these researches lay idle, is because our publicity has been lacking. We are doing our best to increase our visibility, every year we are giving five scholarships and some of our students have started graduating.
We are calling everyone in the research environment to come and register what they are doing. That is what is required by law, so that we advise the Government properly. We do not want to leave anyone behind. We are taking everyone on board.
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