Where research impact begins. May research visits at WUEB

Research impact does not begin at the moment of publication. It begins earlier, in the questions worth asking and the people worth asking them with. The May visits of three international researchers to Wroclaw University of Economics and Business, under the research mobility programme, were exactly such a beginning. They came from China, Mauritius and Ethiopia, each with a different question and a different method.

Qaisar Farhad, a PhD scholar in applied mathematics at Lanzhou University and a holder of a Presidential Scholarship, works in spectral graph theory. During his stay he worked on theoretical results concerning eccentricity and distance eigenvalue multiplicities, spectral spread and closeness energy across various graph classes, together with his WUEB supervisor. His visit followed an earlier research stay at the University of Warsaw and opened institutional cooperation between WUEB and Lanzhou University. 

Cheetra Bhajan, an MPhil/PhD candidate from the University of Mauritius, studies the endemic plants of her island: the isolation and characterisation of bioactive compounds and their antioxidant activity. At WUEB she carried out antioxidant and cell-based biological activity assays on plant extracts and isolated terpene compounds, under the supervision of Professor Joanna Harasym. The visit continued an established collaboration and is intended to advance her doctorate. 

Kibrnesh Tegenaw Tsega, a lecturer and researcher from the University of Gondar, specialises in food fermentation and probiotic microorganisms. Also under the supervision of Professor Joanna Harasym, she studied the functional characterisation of peanut tempeh, examining how the choice of fungal strain shapes the nutritional and bioactive properties of the fermented product. 

Three different disciplines, one shared mechanism. In each case collaboration and the exchange of methods come before the result, and the joint publications that are expected are less a finish line than the first visible trace of something that will take time to bear fruit. The same idea, that impact grows out of collaboration, matures over time and means more than a citation count alone, runs through the recent AACSB report on research impact. It does not unsettle what remains fundamental in scholarship, namely rigour and quality. It simply widens the field of view. 

Both the researchers we hosted and the way the University builds its internationalisation belong to this idea. The research mobility programme is not a single event but a standing structure in which visiting researchers, their questions and their networks become part of the scholarly life of the University. Internationalisation is among the strategic priorities of the WUEB Strategy 2030, and mobility and joint publications are one of its measurable expressions. 

For WUEB, research impact is something that is built, not merely counted. The May visits were a small, concrete step in that direction: three questions that travelled a long way, and three collaborations that have yet to show where they lead. 

The project is funded by the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange from European Union funds under the European Funds for Social Development 2021-2027 Programme, PROM Programme: short-term academic exchange. Project number: BPI/PRO/2025/1/00021. 

The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of the European Union or the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority is responsible for the content of this publication. 

Project website: https://international.uew.pl/prom-short-term-academic-exchange/ 

Project number: BPI/PRO/2025/1/00021 

Funding amount: PLN 999,675.00

Author of text: Anna Śliwa, Justyna Morawska-Płoskonka