By Alois Vinga
THE Marketers Association of Zimbabwe (MAZ) will this year jointly host the marketing academic summer school which will bridge the huge gap between academia and the real professional world.
In an update Thursday, MAZ said the joint approach was prompted by observations that emerging practical marketing trends are ever evolving yet there is no linkage with conventional academia.
“Over time, MAZ has noted that a myriad of practical marketing trends emerge in industry due to the changing technological landscape. Further, each year, academic institutions conduct research which never gets to be seen by industry. This collaboration seeks to close this gap and provide an interface where industry outlines the practical marketing applications in industry, whilst the academia shares relevant research findings,” MAZ said.
The interface also falls in line with the University of Zimbabwe’s transformative journey where one of its five strategic objectives is to develop strategic partnerships to leverage knowledge-sharing, resource mobilisation and investments for advancement of innovative research, outreach, teaching and business development.
The summer school aims to provide a platform for the academic world to share research insights and findings/ outputs from their wealth of research, which will assist industry in decision making; exchange e practical insights, challenges, and opportunities, as well as new trends which will open opportunities for further research and provide a networking platform for both industry and the academic sector.
The interaction will encourage a consistent flow of ideas between the two sectors, in particular in the business and marketing spheres while identifying research gaps that can create many research questions for masters and doctoral students at the University of Zimbabwe.
“Over the years we have envisaged such a partnership where industry and academia meet to exchange ideas. We are happy that we have the University of Zimbabwe partnering us in this historic initiative.
“We have marketing graduates across universities in Zimbabwe that have done extensive research and innovations as part of their final year projects and disappointingly most of these projects are stacked up at the Faculty office and gathering dust yet they have an impact on today’s industry,” MAZ Executive Secretary, Gillian Rusike said.
He added the Memorandum Of Agreement for the partnership with the University of Zimbabwe will cement the relations between industry and academia and also resonated with the government’s education 5.0 thrust.
