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150530P - DISCUSSION POINTS ON RESEARCH AT THE WORKSHOP FOR ACADEMICS DURBAN SOUTH AFRICA

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Presented at a workshop in Durban, South Africa on May 30, 2015 by Professor Omar Hasan Kasule Sr. MB ChB (MUK), MPH (Harvard), DrPH (Harvard)


1.      Vision, mission, and objectives: What is the vision and mission research? What is the mission of the research program in spear-heading research in its priority areas of reform of thought, knowledge, and education? Is it feasible that in the future most of our publications will be from our own research? Can we meet the challenge of producing new knowledge instead of recycling old knowledge?

2.      Concept clarification: What do we mean by reform of thought and reform of knowledge/epistemology? What other concepts in thought and knowledge that need systematic definition? Do these theoretical concepts have practical implications in society? How do we formulate the 4 components of the thought theme (Qur’an, sunnat, Islamic heritage, and western heritage) in terms of our research program? Is the knowledge/education theme covered adequately by the concept of integration of knowledge (IOK)?

3.      Research priorities in the thought theme: What are the outstanding issues in our thought? What are our priority research areas and questions in thought? How much has been written about them? What are the gaps that need to be covered? Who and where are the researchers capable of covering these gaps?

4.      Research priorities in the knowledge/epistemology theme: What is the order of priorities among academic disciplines: social/human sciences, natural sciences, technology? What Islamic sciences do we focus on? How do we integrate maqasid al shari’at and fiqh in our research? Should our research in economic and political thought be theoretical, practical or both?

5.      Management of the research program: Should research be managed centrally or should it decentralized? What are the comparative advantages/disadvantages of centralization vs decentralization? What shall be our policies in determining the amount of research funding and its duration (short term, medium term, and long term)? How shall we formulate and advertise requests for proposals (RFP)? What shall be our process and criteria for peer review and approval of research proposals?  What shall be our processes for following up to ensure completion of research projects on time while fulfilling our criteria of quality?  What shall be our policy on publication and dissemination of research?  What shall be our policies and processes for handling ethico-legal issues of research contracts, copyright, authorship rights, and plagiarism?