The South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI) establishes prestigious research chairs in South African universities with the support of funding from the National Research Foundation (NRF). The programme, launched in 2006 as a joint initiative between the NRF and the national Department of Science and Innovation (DSI), aims to attract and retain excellent researchers in South African public institutions. The research chairs are reserved for established researchers and are renewable for up to 15 years. [1]
DSI (then called the Department of Science and Technology) established the South African Research Chairs Initiative in 2006 as a means of attracting and retaining "excellence in research and innovation at South African public universities". [1] In particular, the government was concerned to deter brain drain while attracting expatriate, foreign, and private-sector researchers. [2]
The initiative is implemented by the NRF, and a small number of chairs are co-funded with donations from interested businesses. [2] Research chairs funded under the initiative are hosted by a South African university and are supported by sizeable NRF research grants, which cover salaries, postdoctoral fellowships, research equipment and operating costs, and other overhead for the research programme established under the chair. Each chair is established at one of two tiers according to the candidate's track record in research and student supervision: Tier I chairs are reserved for internationally recognised researchers, who are eligible to spend up to 50 per cent of their time outside South Africa, while Tier II chairs are full-time. [1] Chairs can be renewed every five years for up to 15 years. [3]
Supporters of the initiative argue that it ameliorates brain drain, [4] boosts research output and capacity for postgraduate supervision, [5] [6] [7] supports affirmative action efforts in respect of gender and race, [8] and results in broader economic benefits by boosting research and development capacity. [9]
Applications for new research chairs are solicited and approved at the discretion of DSI and the NRF. Upon its launch in 2006, the initiative established 21 chairs and set a target of supporting 210 chairs by 2010, representing an investment of close to R10-billion over 15 years. [3] [10] By mid-2011, only 92 research chairs had been established, [2] though they accounted for an outsized proportion of the country's total research output – comprising 1.5 per cent of all active researchers in South Africa, they produced 4.5 per cent of national research outputs. [11]
By 2015, the number of research chairs had grown to 150. [5] Later that year, noting that men accounted for 80 per cent of SARChI recipients, Naledi Pandor (then the Minister of Science and Technology) announced an unprecedented call for applications that was open only to women researchers; 42 women were approved for new research chairs, bringing the total stock of research chairs to 201 and close to gender parity. [10] [12]
Especially in the early years of the initiative, there was debate in the academic community about the equity of the distribution of the research chairs across disciplines and institutions. Early grants were concentrated at South Africa's top-ranked research universities, such as the University of Cape Town and University of the Witwatersrand; [3] however, by 2012, 21 of the country's 23 universities hosted at least one chair, and the representation of former technikons had improved vastly. [13] Similarly, the initiative was initially criticised for its narrow focus on research topics in science, which were more closely aligned to the government's strategic priorities, [14] but greater provision was later made for humanities and social science researchers to obtain research chairs in an "open" category. [1]
Name | Position | Host institution | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|
Cathi Albertyn | South African Research Chair in Equality, Law and Social Justice | Witwatersrand University | [15] |
Priscilla Baker | South African Research Chair in Analytical Systems and Processes for Priority and Emerging Contaminants | University of the Western Cape | [16] |
Jacek Banasiak | South African Research Chair in Mathematical Models and Methods in Bioengineering and Biosciences | University of Pretoria | [17] |
Haroon Bhorat | South African Research Chair in Economic Growth, Poverty and Inequality | University of Cape Town | [18] |
Reinette Biggs | South African Research Chair in Social-Ecological Systems and Resilience | Stellenbosch University | [19] |
Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela | South African Research Chair in Violent Histories and Transgenerational Trauma | Stellenbosch University | [20] |
Amanda Gouws | South African Research Chair in Gender Politics | Stellenbosch University | [21] |
Pumla Dineo Gqola | South African Research Chair in African Feminist Imaginations | Nelson Mandela University | [22] |
Ruth Hall | South African Research Chair in Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies | University of the Western Cape | [16] |
Patricia Hayes | South African Research Chair in Visual History and Theory | University of the Western Cape | [16] |
Cang Hui | South African Research Chair in Mathematical and Theoretical Physical Biosciences | Stellenbosch University | [23] |
Namrita Lall | South African Research Chair in Plant Health Products from Indigenous Knowledge Systems | University of Pretoria | [17] |
Janice Limson | South African Research Chair in Biotechnology Innovation and Engagement | Rhodes University | [24] |
Catriona Macleod | South African Research Chair in Critical Studies in Sexualities and Reproduction | Rhodes University | [24] |
Penny Moore | South African Research Chair in Virus-Host Dynamics for Public Health | Witwatersrand University | [25] |
Caroline Ncube | South African Research Chair in Intellectual Property, Innovation and Development | University of Cape Town | [18] |
Philiswa Nomngongo | South African Research Chair in Nanotechnology for Water | University of Johannesburg | [26] |
Kenneth Ozoemena | South African Research Chair in Materials Electrochemistry and Energy Technologies | Witwatersrand University | [27] |
Leila Patel | South African Research Chair in Welfare and Social Development | University of Johannesburg | [26] |
Michèle Ramsay | South African Research Chair in Bioinformatics of African Populations | Witwatersrand University | [28] |
Mike Roberts | Bilateral South African Chair in Marine Food Security (with the University of Southampton) | Nelson Mandela University | [29] |
Melissa Steyn | South African Research Chair in Critical Diversity Studies | Witwatersrand University | [28] |
Caroline Tiemessen | South African Research Chair in HIV Vaccine Translational Research | Witwatersrand University | [28] |
Dire Tladi | South African Research Chair in International Constitutional Law | University of Pretoria | [17] |
Fiona Tregenna | South African Research Chair in Industrial Development | University of Johannesburg | [26] |
Cherryl Walker | South African Research Chair in Sociology of Land, Environment and Sustainable Development | Stellenbosch University | [30] |
Amanda Weltman | South African Research Chair in Physical Cosmology | University of Cape Town | [18] |
Brenda Wingfield | South African Research Chair in Fungal Genomics | University of Pretoria | [17] |
Name | Position | Institution | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|
Jill Adler | South African Research Chair in Mathematics Education | Witwatersrand University | |
Alan Christoffels | South African Research Chair in Bioinformatics and Public Health | University of the Western Cape | [16] |
Felix Dapare Dakora | South African Research Chair in Agrochemurgy and Plant Symbioses | Tshwane University of Technology | [31] |
Tania Douglas | South African Research Chair in Biomedical Engineering and Innovation | University of Cape Town | |
Catherine Odora Hoppers | South African Research Chair in Development Education | University of South Africa | |
Shabir Madhi | South African Research Chair in Vaccine-Preventable Diseases | Witwatersrand University | |
Thumbi Ndung'u | South African Research Chair in Systems Biology of HIV/AIDS | University of KwaZulu-Natal | |
Lungisile Ntsebeza | South African Research Chair in Land Reform and Democracy in South Africa | University of Cape Town | [32] |
Tebello Nyokong | South African Research Chair in Medicinal Chemistry and Nanotechnology | Rhodes University | [24] |
Francesco Petruccione | South African Research Chair in Quantum Information Processing and Communication | University of KwaZulu-Natal | |
Daya Reddy | South African Research Chair in Computational Mechanics | University of Cape Town | |
Alta Schutte | South African Research Chair in Early Detection and Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease in Africa | North-West University | |
Peter Weingart | South African Research Chair in Science Communication | Stellenbosch University |
The University of Cape Town (UCT) is a public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university status in 1918, making it the oldest university in South Africa and the oldest university in Sub-Saharan Africa in continuous operation.
South Africa’s National Research Foundation (NRF) is the intermediary agency between the policies and strategies of the Government of South Africa and South Africa's research institutions.
Grace Naledi Mandisa Pandor is a South African politician, educator and academic serving as the Minister of International Relations and Cooperation since 2019. She has served as a Member of Parliament (MP) for the African National Congress (ANC) since 1994.
Cang Hui is a mathematical ecologist at Stellenbosch University. His research interests are proposing models and theories for explaining emerging patterns of biodiversity, networks and adaptive traits in ecology and evolution.
Fulufhelo Vincent Nelwamondo (OMS) is an electrical engineer by training, and holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of the Witwatersrand, in South Africa. He is the youngest recipient of the Harvard-South Africa Fellowship Programme amongst other honours. His research and practical experience has covered a wide spectrum of areas, including software engineering and computational intelligence. His interests include biometrics-based systems, data mining and machine learning tools.
Bettine van Vuuren is the Registrar and a Member of the Executive at the University of Johannesburg. She is also a Professor of Zoology and Director of the Centre for Ecological Genomics and Wildlife Conservation at the University of Johannesburg.
Brenda D. Wingfield is a South African Professor of genetics and previous Deputy Dean of the University of Pretoria. She is known for her genetic studies of fungal tree pathogens.
Cherryl Walker is professor of sociology in the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology at Stellenbosch University, which she joined in 2005, and is DSI/NRF SARChI Chair in the Sociology of Land, Environment and Sustainable Development at Stellenbosch since 2016. She is an authority on South African society - specialising in South Africa's land redistribution/restitution, land reform, gender and cosmopolitanism, and environmental sociology.
Priscilla Baker is a professor of analytical chemistry at the University of the Western Cape. She is the co-leader of SensorLab, a research platform in electrochemistry that deals with the electrodynamics of materials and sensors. She is an active member of the Academy of Science of South Africa, European Scientific Network for Artificial Muscles (ESNAM) and the Marie Curie International staff exchange scheme (IRSES).
Tania S. Douglas was a Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Research Chair in Biomedical Engineering and Innovation as well as Director of the Medical Imaging Research Unit in the University of Cape Town (UCT), South Africa. She conducted research concerning medical innovation, image analysis, and the development of technologies to improve medical device innovation in South Africa. She was also the founding Editor-in-Chief of Global Health Innovation, a journal which disseminates research results about health innovation in developing settings.
Marina Joubert is a senior science communication researcher at The Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology (CREST) at Stellenbosch University. Previously, she was the communication manager for the National Research Foundation and managed her own independent science communication consultancy for a decade. Her consultancy presented the first online course in science communication in Africa.
Janice Leigh Limson is a South African Professor of Biotechnology, former Chairperson the School of Biotechnology at Rhodes University and the SARChI Chair in Biotechnology Innovation & Engagement at Rhodes University. She is founder and editor-in-chief of the magazine Science in Africa, the first popular online science magazine for Africa. Her research focuses on topics ranging from the development of nanotechnology biosensors for cancer diagnostics, drug delivery, detection of pathogens in food to the design of fuel cell technology.
Professor Reinette "Oonsie" Biggs is a South African sustainability scientist whose research focuses on food, water, and the benefits people receive from nature. Biggs is the co-director of the Centre for Complex Systems in Transition at Stellenbosch University, South Africa and a researcher at Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University in Sweden.
iThemba Laboratory for Accelerator Based Sciences is a scientific research centre with plants at Faure near Cape Town and on the Wits Campus in Johannesburg.
Philiswa Nomngongo is a South African professor of Analytical Chemistry and the South African Research Chair (SARChI) in nanotechnology for water. Her research focuses on environmental analytical chemistry and the use of nanomaterials for water treatment, water remediation, and water quality analysis and monitoring.
Fiona Tregenna is a South African economist who is professor of economics at the University of Johannesburg. She holds the South African Research Chair in industrial development. She has been a member of the South African Competition Tribunal since 2013 and served on President Cyril Ramaphosa's Presidential Economic Advisory Council.
Kenneth Ikechukwu Ozoemena is a Nigerian physical chemist, materials scientist, and academic. He is a research professor at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg where he Heads the South African SARChI Chair in Materials Electrochemistry and Materials Technologies (MEET), supported by the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI), National Research Foundation (NRF) and Wits.
Namrita Lall is an Indian–South African botanist and pharmacologist who is professor of plant sciences at the University of Pretoria. She is an expert in medicinal plant science. At the University of Pretoria, she holds the South African Research Chair for Plant Health Products from Indigenous Knowledge Systems and leads a research group that is active in bioprospecting, particularly in respect of cosmeceuticals and tuberculosis and cancer treatments.
Catherine Hester Albertyn is a South African academic who is a professor of law at the University of the Witwatersrand, where she holds the South African Research Chair in Equality, Law and Social Justice. Known for her work in constitutional law, she has been a professor at the university since 2001 and formerly ran its Centre for Applied Legal Studies between 2001 and 2007. She has also served as a commissioner at the Commission for Gender Equality and the South African Law Reform Commission.