Current Students and Staff

// University News

12 Sep 2014

New collaborative research project on knowledge management travels to South Africa

Senior Lecturer Dr Gillian Ragsdell at the School of Business and Economics has been awarded international seed corn money to fund a new research project on knowledge management with academics at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.

Gillian travelled to South Africa earlier this month to meet with Dr Connie Bitso at Cape Town along with other colleagues there. She was joined by Moya Hoult (Chief Officer of Charnwood Citizens Advice Bureau and lead partner of Charnwood Connect, for which Gillian is an academic advisor), in order to share best practice and further develop the knowledge management work being done both in Leicestershire and in South Africa.

“I’m very excited about this project,” said Gillian. “Knowledge management can bring greater efficiencies in the voluntary sector – it is not only helpful in business. South Africa’s voluntary sector is vibrant, which is why we chose it, and we hope to set up a community of practice with Cape Town NGOs so that we can learn from each other’s experiences. This is a pivotal exercise which will hopefully trigger other KM projects.”

Funded by the Big Lottery's Advice Services Transition Fund, Charnwood Connect was launched 1st October 2013 with the objective of encouraging voluntary and public sector organisations to work together to achieve more for service users and service providers, building on the success of the well-established advice providers in the Borough to promote ‘a joined-up’ approach.

Notes: Gillian is Coordinator of the Knowledge Management Research Group at the University, as well as a member of the Centre for Information Management, and a leading academic within the field of knowledge management. For more information on the research project with the University of Cape Town, please contact Gillian on G.Ragsdell@lboro.ac.uk