The UCT Graduate School of Business (UCT GSB) has significantly enhanced its PhD offering with the introduction of several new elements to support and guide PhD applicants and students at the School.

The development of the PhD is a key part of the UCT GSB’s vision of developing African academic talent and emergent market thought leadership.

The initiatives include improving and streamlining the PhD application procedure, introducing a research methodology course to support students, and creating a new dedicated and well-equipped workspace for PhD students.

In addition, securing financial assistance is being prioritised for students who meet specific criteria; and the School is endeavouring to make it possible for students to attend at least two conferences and present papers with a view to ultimately getting these papers published in peer-reviewed journals.

According to Dr Mills Soko, Director of the GSB PhD programme, the major investment in the PhD programme is part of a wider research development initiative at the School.

“The development of the PhD programme is a key part of creating a vibrant research lab at the UCT GSB. It will also create an ideal platform for students to interact and discuss their research, fostering a community of research.”

This community of research initiative will also include a GSB Doctoral Research Seminar Series, designed to enable all doctoral students to do presentations on their research and subject their work to peer review in a collegial, supportive and engaging environment.

“The seminar series will provide new students with a platform to present and receive feedback on their research proposals, while also enabling those students who have advanced further with their doctoral studies to reflect on research progress,” said Soko.

Furthermore, Soko said that the enhanced PhD programme will assist the GSB to grow its own academic talent.

“As several faculty members are also PhD candidates, the business school through developing this talent will ensure that a culture of cutting-edge research is entrenched from the ground up and that the GSB continues to provide a world-class level business education.”

These sentiments were echoed by Professor Walter Baets, Director of the UCT GSB. “Investing in the GSB PhD has a double aim – one being accelerating the development of academic talent on the continent, and the second, building the stature of the GSB as a thought leader, particularly in the emergent market paradigm,” he said.

He added that he GSB has a stated vision to be a new model of a business school – one that is based on the paradigm of the emergent economy. Emergent economies are economies (or companies) that experience conditions of high uncertainty, high complexity, and often excessive inequality.

This new paradigm is relevant not only for countries like SA, India or Brazil, but equally for companies encountering or operating in such conditions.

“We will be encouraging research in one of four transversal themes we have identified around emergent markets, and we anticipate that a growing body of high-quality research will emerge to offer new understandings.”