The University of Johannesburg (UJ) was recently ranked #1 in South Africa for its research output, #1 in the world in terms of SDG 1 and it’s School of Tourism and Hospitality was also recently recognised in the Shanghai rankings as # in Africa and #6 in the world.

In a bid to keep its research fire ablaze, the largest College in the University, the College of Business Economics (CBE) is holding a writing retreat at the Garden Venue in Johannesburg for a cross-section of its faculty. The participants at the seminar are drawn from the six schools in the college namely, the School of Accounting (SoA), School of Consumer Intelligence and Information Systems (SCiiS, School of Economics (SoE), School of Management (SoM), School of Public Management, Governance and Public Policy (SPMGP) and the School of Tourism and Hospitality (STH).

Commenting on the importance the seminar, the Executive Dean of the College, Professor Lungile Ntsalaze, and the Vice-Dean (Acting): Research, Innovation & Internationalisation, Professor Hossana Twinomurinzi both shared the ambitious research output targets the College was contending with and their optimism regarding the importance of the retreat in improving the research intensity of the college.

The aim of the workshop was to assist early mid-career scholars get the necessary skills and information to assist with their academic writing and the seminar is holding from 14-16 November 2023 from 08:30 AM - 5:00 PM on each day.

The main facilitator for the workshop is Professor Willie Chinyamurindi, a National Research Foundation (NRF) Rated Researcher (Y2) working at the University of Fort Hare as a Professor within the Department of Business Management. Some of the topics the workshop covers include “Identifying your Research Genre and Writing Goals”, “Essentials of academic Writing”, and Trends shaping academic writing”.

Professor Willie Chinyamurindi is handling the second and third day and on the first day, other scholars spoke to the retreat participants. Dr Kenny Chiwarawara, Dr Gabriel Mhonyera and Professor Robert E. Hinson were some of the supporting acts for the first day of the seminar and they handled topics such as getting started with your manuscript for publication, and networking to achieve research impact.

The seminar participants expressed their deep satisfaction with first day of the seminar and gave feedback about how inspiring the sessions were, and an idea was even mooted to set an ambitious one thousand accredited research outputs for the CBE in 2024 under the campaign theme “Pushing for Thousand (PFT). The first day ended on a high note with participants committing to work to improve their research outputs and profiles to keep the University of Johannesburg in its preeminent research position.