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SAEON gears up for new challenges
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Drawing on the past, exploring the present and preparing for the future - this edition of SAEON eNews does well to illustrate the role that SAEON is playing to improve South Africa’s knowledge base and to contribute to sustainable development.
Our current observation programmes are supported by the rebirth of historical datasets, by modelling systems functioning, by improving restoration of degraded landscapes and by developing human capacity for the future. The harmony among these topics and the balance among our range of objectives are the forces that propel SAEON’s staff and participants towards great achievements. No wonder then that this edition speaks volumes about how SAEON staff and participants are deriving immense satisfaction from their respective projects!
The inescapable downside of a growing organisation is the amount of coordination and control required, which can become menacing forces in any organisation. Mitigation of administrative demands, which have the potential to suppress creativity and energy in SAEON, is a growing challenge to management. Part of SAEON’s success so far has come from the strategy to establish nodes in consultation and collaboration with partners, and thereafter to delegate a fair amount of authority to the node management, within National Research Foundation (NRF) policies and SAEON’s Core Science Framework.
SAEON did not start by establishing its administrative headquarters before launching the nodes. Instead, the SAEON National Office gradually evolved from using the systems of corporate or partner institutions while employing technical staff to drive the portfolios of science, education, information management and stakeholder relations. It was only during 2010 that the need to create an own centralised administration became apparent and led to the addition of financial and human resource capacity to the National Office. A year or two later we appointed a research administrator and only as recently as this year a full-time IT support desk.
Embarking on cross-node research projects
Now we have reached the stage where the National Office will also be strengthened by a Chief Research Scientist. Accordingly it has become necessary to introduce a higher degree of formality into our business.
Under the leadership of the Chief Research Scientist we will establish formal cross-node research projects and improve our research management systems. These will be accompanied by improved data management systems, protocols, capacity and practices. Overall, reporting systems will become more committee-based than the current one-on-one reporting. Implementation of new processes will pose challenges by increasing internal complexity and requiring additional financial resources.
Nevertheless, it should be clear to readers that SAEON is continuously offering higher levels of public value and will soon be on an equal footing with larger science entities.
The potential for the Minister of Science and Technology to declare SAEON as a full-bodied National Facility is indeed becoming stronger by the day.
Wishing all our readers a peaceful year-end break,
Johan
