NCRST, SARIMA conduct critical training workshop

By Confidente Reporter

THE National Commission on Re­search, Science and Technology (NCRST) together with the South­ern African Research and Innovation Management Association (SARIMA) conducted a training workshop on re­search and grants management.
The workshop took place as from 26 June to 30 June at the Avani Hotel and Casino in Windhoek. This workshop is a follow-up capacity building initiative, after the recently-held SARIMA annual conference that took place in Windhoek between 22 and 25 May.
SARIMA is a membership organisation of research and innovation managers that operates at an institutional, national and international level, as well as across value chains from research, through to success­ful innovation or commercialisation. The benefit of SARIMA is to promote research and innovation management to its South­ern African partners and stakeholders.
This training workshop aimed to ca­pacitate Namibian institutions that deal with research and grants management, to effectively carry out their respective mandates. Participants to this training workshop included the NCRST, the Na­mibia University of Science and Technol­ogy (NUST), the University of Namibia (Unam) and the International University of Management (IUM).
Since the inception of the NCRST in 2013, the commission vigilantly focused its efforts on the sourcing and provision of funding for research, science, technology and innovation, in line with its ultimate objectives, as outlined in the current draft Science Technology and Innovation (STI) policy.
This includes:
•Improving the coordination and fund­ing of research and innovation;
•Improving collaboration between government, industry and academia to strengthen commercialisation efforts; and
•Improving the monitoring and eval­uation strategies for research and exper­imental development and innovation projects.
During the opening of the workshop, NCRST Acting Chief Executive Officer, Enid Keramen, noted that, “A training workshop of this nature is not organised in isolation. It ties in well with both pillars II and V of one of government’s develop­ment agendas, the Harambee Prosperi­ty Plan, which highlights the economic advancement and international relations and corporation aspect. We can only re­alise the objectives of our Harambee Pros­perity Plan, if we participate fully in events of this nature.” The workshop was further aimed to expose participants to the best practices related to the process of research and grants management, and to provide various research and funding institutions with the necessary competitive advantage, to attract impactful research and innova­tion projects that demonstrate potential positive contributions to socio-economic advancement.
At the end of the training workshop, participants acquired knowledge and skills on grant management, developing and managing strategic partnerships for facilitating research, and the monitoring and evaluation of funding programmes, amongst other