News

A total of 200 University of Botswana graduate students recently attended a Research Methods Training Workshop to enhance their research skills as well as to get exposure to a diverse range of research methods.

The workshop was hosted by the Department of Sociology and the School of Graduate Studies (SGS) in partnership with the Spatial Methods for Urban Sustainability (SMUS) Botswana project, led by Professor Gabriel Faimau.

The workshop was sponsored by the SMUS project with funds from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) via the German Academic Exchange Services (DAAD). The facilitators also visited Bahurutse Cultural Village to learn about Setswana culture. 

Delivering welcome remarks, Sociology Lecturer, Professor Gabriel Faimau, said the workshop was designed to provide a comprehensive and immersive learning experience to UB graduate students from various faculties, prospective MPhil/PhD candidates, as well as early career researchers.

Professor Faimau said students would have the opportunity to broaden their understanding of different research approaches, methodologies, and techniques. He further noted that for the past years they had been presented with the idea of a knowledge-based economy.

“A knowledge-based society should always be informed by a learning-based society,” said Professor Faimau.

He said the workshop was part of the efforts to transition to a knowledge-based society as one of the goals of Vision 2036.

Meanwhile, Director of Global Centre of Spatial Methods for Urban Sustainability at the Technical University of Berlin said the SMUS project contributed to capacity building of the researchers in the Global South and strengthened the spirit of research collaboration between researchers in the Global South and Global North with a specific focus on the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11.