Page 109 - A Widening Idea of Health and Health Research - The South African Medical Research Council from Creation to COVID

A Widening Idea of Health: The SAMRC from Creation to Covid

Grooming the next generation: the MRC’s Early Career Scientist Convention, 2019,
bringing together up-and-coming scientists from different research areas. All were funded
by the MRC. The theme of the 2019 convention was ‘Progress not perfection: Balancing
mental and physical health on your PhD journey’.

Not all ageing MRC staff members were as accommodating of transformation,
however. An anonymous perception survey among staff in 2015 elicited several
negative comments about Black Economic Empowerment: ‘it seems to me that people
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get positions that they are not qualified for’, ran one, while another respondent was
very critical of ‘choosing new staff outside MRC as per colour of their skin and not
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the ones recognised as a good employee … already in the past’. Against these must be
set responses like that from an African researcher who had been at the MRC for nine
years already: ‘The organisation is clear on its commitment to transformation, which
is so reassuring for young Black scientists!’ The evidence of transformation in action
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in the accompanying table indicates why this researcher felt so reassured.

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