South African trends in masters and doctoral research in Public Administration

Abstract

It is safe to assume that research by masters and doctoral students in Public Administration is meant to contribute to meeting the need for scholarly knowledge and insights by public administration practitioners. It therefore makes sense to ask whether dissertation and thesis research by South African postgraduate students in Public Administration focus on the issues that are of real importance. This article reports on an analysis of information available on the Nexus database of the (South African) National Research Foundation (NRF) about completed research for masters dissertations and doctoral theses in Public Administration from 2000 to 2005. The analysis shows that the profile of completed South African masters and doctoral research in Public Administration is dominated by Stellenbosch University and the University of the Western Cape, which are together responsible for 38.3% of the total research output. Research masters degrees currently form the bulk (52.63%) of postgraduate research output in Public Administration. Doctoral research, with 22.22% of the postgraduate research output, seems to be well represented. The two institutions excelling in doctoral research output (the University of Pretoria and the University of KwaZulu-Natal) are not the top two Public Administration research institutions in South Africa as the number of doctoral degrees awarded are far fewer than the number of masters degrees awarded. The analysis also shows that the bulk of the research is concentrated in three categories of research topics, of which two correspond strongly with the needs for knowledge expressed by government. This analysis of the Nexus database provides a profile of Public Administration postgraduate research in terms of institution, type of qualification and category of topic that will set the scene for further research, specifically with regard to the quality of the research.