Response from South Africa’s health department says sensitive data have been deleted and blames “miscommunication”

South Africa’s Department of Health has hit back against allegations that it failed to account for the safe disposal of personal data collected as part of the country’s track-and-trace Covid-19 response.

On 20 February, the country’s Information Regulator announced that it had referred the department to the privacy law Enforcement Committee over failures to account for information collected as part of the management of the spread of coronavirus while the country was in a declared ‘state of disaster’.

The state of disaster lapsed on 5 April 2022. As the custodian of the database of personal data, the health department should have destroyed or de-identified the information within six weeks after that, the regulator says.

According to the regulator, the data included information such as the first name, surname, passport number, address and Covid test results of people who were known or suspected to have come into contact with Covid-infected individuals.

Compliance ‘not optional’

Since May 2022, the regulator has been demanding information about the fate of the data collected by the health department.

It has also been asking the department to confirm that it obtained a report from an expert third-party IT security firm validating the safeguards in place to avoid privacy breaches in the data collected during the crisis. This report was a recommendation to the health minister by retired judge Kate O’Regan, who had been tasked with monitoring the track-and-trace programme.

“Compliance is not optional…We have been lenient with the department on this point, but we would be failing the data subjects if we, as the regulator, do not take action to ensure that there is compliance and accountability,” said Information Regulator chair Pansy Tlakula.

‘Miscommunication’

The regulator says that after numerous unsuccessful requests to the department for information about what happened to the data, it has no choice but to escalate the matter. Reporting the department to the Enforcement Committee “can culminate in issuing an enforcement notice, which has the same effect as a court order”.

In a written response to Research Professional News, a department spokesperson said the data had been destroyed. The department had “noted and will respond to all issues raised by the Information Regulator with regards to collection and protection of personal information gathered during Covid-19 contact tracing”.

“The department will reach out to the regulator to clarify miscommunication with regards to the request,” the spokesperson said, adding: “The department recognises the role of the regulator to protect data subjects from harm and ensure that their personal information is protected by responsible parties.”

The post Privacy watchdog raises concerns over Covid tracking data appeared first on Research Professional News.

Finance minister Enoch Godongwana hopes reformed scheme will boost uptake

The South African government has extended its R&D tax credit scheme for businesses despite the programme’s disappointing record to date.

In his 2023 budget speech on 22 February, finance minister Enoch Godongwana (pictured) announced a 10-year extension of the scheme from 2024.

South Africa’s R&D tax scheme allows for a 150 per cent deduction for tax purposes on expenditure on eligible scientific or technological R&D carried out in South Africa. To date, most of the tax credit’s beneficiaries have been in the manufacturing sector, and the amounts claimed have dwindled year on year, sparking a review in 2021.

R&D redefined

The extension to the R&D tax credits is accompanied by reforms to the scheme to make it “simpler and more effective”, said Godongwana, echoing proposals unveiled in October last year.

The extended scheme will refine the definition of R&D to make it easier to understand what qualifies under the scheme. According to a budget document, R&D will be defined as “activities aimed at resolving a scientific or technological uncertainty”.

The idea that R&D must have an end result, such as a patent, will also be removed from the definition, as applicants “will not know how their R&D activities will unfold when applying for the incentive”.

The reforms also include allowing the South African Revenue Service to disclose information to the minister of higher education, science and innovation to improve monitoring and evaluation of the scheme.

Three priorities

Godongwana’s reference to the R&D tax credit scheme was the only mention of research or science he made in what was an hour-long budget address, in which he set out government spending priorities for the coming financial year.

Those priorities include supporting clean energy investments to end the country’s rolling power blackouts, an increase in sin tax on alcohol and tobacco, and “continuing fiscal constraint” to safeguard the economy from the multiple threats of climate change, war and sluggish growth.

The post South Africa extends R&D tax credits for 10 years appeared first on Research Professional News.

South African university’s comments follow vice-chancellor’s controversial meeting with Russian consul general

Stellenbosch University has called the establishment of new research links with Russia “impossible” due to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and the resulting geopolitical tensions.

The comment, on 19 February, came after the South African university drew criticism when it emerged that vice-chancellor Wim de Villiers (pictured) had hosted Aleksei Malenko, Russia’s consul general in Cape Town, the week before.

The consulate tweeted on 17 February: “Today Russian consul general in Cape Town Mr A Malenko held a meeting with rector and vice-chancellor of Stellenbosch University W de Villiers. The parties discussed [the] prospective of future cooperation in different spheres.”

Responses on the social media platform to the tweet ranged from support for the meeting to disgust. Leon Schreiber, an MP for South Africa’s main opposition party the Democratic Alliance, wrote: “This is what leadership bereft of all principle looks like.”

The university published a statement on its website saying that the meeting with the consul general was “purely academic in nature” and that De Villiers had “clearly framed the meeting within the understanding of the current geopolitical environment that makes collaboration impossible”. It added that the university “stands firmly against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine”.

No new partnerships

In a statement to Research Professional News, a university spokesperson clarified that the comment referred to the initiation of new partnerships. A partnership with the HSE National Research University in Moscow, agreed “a number of years ago”, is still in place, they said.

“While we cannot prescribe the individual actions of our lecturers and students, there have been no reports regarding academic collaboration resuming between Stellenbosch University and Russian academics since 2021,” the spokesperson said.

“The university will not, and has not, pursued any further partnerships, as made clear by the vice-chancellor,” they added.

The post New research links with Russia ‘impossible’, says Stellenbosch appeared first on Research Professional News.

Change is inevitable but artificial intelligence can be used creatively, webinar hears

The use of artificial intelligence such as the popular chatbot ChatGPT in South African higher education settings is inevitable and there is no point trying to fight it, a webinar heard this week.

ChatGPT is a language-based AI technology tool, developed by OpenAl, that can understand and communicate in human language. Launched in November 2022, it has already come in for plenty of scrutiny, with academics across the globe probing its likely effect on academic integrity.

The implications of ChatGPT for assessment in higher education was the subject of an online seminar held by the Academy of Science of South Africa on 22 February.

Here to stay 

“We need to acknowledge that this technology shift is here to stay, so we need to use it more creatively and not try to fight it,” said Roze Phillips, founder and CEO of Abundance at Work, a company that helps make businesses future-fit for their work.

“Technology can tell us what we can do, but only humans can tell us what we ought to do. It is important to unleash more critical thinking rather than just accept what is given to us,” Phillips added. 

Fellow speaker Johannes Cronjé, who is digital teaching and learning head at Cape Peninsula University of Technology, pointed out that international developments in AI matter to the African academic community.

“We are not far behind with regards to technology. Our scholars and learners are also experimenting with the tool,” he said.

Thought expander

He added that the use of ChatGPT may not be such a bad thing, as it challenges both teachers and learners to move their thinking from assessing just the end product to a broader spectrum of assessing the process that leads to the end product.

“Yes, ChatGPT can create. But it is still up to us [users] to evaluate what it has created,” he said. Learners cannot just copy and paste what ChatGPT churns out, he explained, adding that the learner still has to reflect on the answers provided by the tool.

Similarly, a lecturer would have to apply critical thinking skills when assessing students’ work in the AI era, he added. This means asking critical questions, such as whether the right question was asked and relevant information provided.

The post ‘Don’t fight it’: South African academics weigh in on ChatGPT appeared first on Research Professional News.

Panel is being chaired by judge Lex Mpati, chancellor of Rhodes University

The University of Cape Town in South Africa has appointed a four-member independent judicial panel to investigate the governance issues that have rocked the institution since last year.

The chair of the panel is Judge Lex Mpati, the current chancellor of Rhodes University and former president of the Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa. The three other members are Judge Azhar Cachalia, Bernadette Johnson, director of transformation and employment equity at the University of the Witwatersrand, and governance expert Trish Hanekom.

Last year, the institution had committed to appointing a five-member panel but in a 9 February statement, it says it had to review this number when the fifth member became unavailable.

UCT says the panel will investigate whether vice-chancellor Mamokgethi Phakeng and chair of council Babalwa Ngonyama misled faculty boards, the university senate and the council regarding the reasons for the non-availability to serve for a second term of former deputy vice-chancellor of teaching and learning Lis Lange.

The panel will also investigate other matters related to executive relationships, the statement says. This includes the number of, and reasons for, resignations of staff within and outside the executive. Last year, Phakeng and Ngonyama faced a complex set of claims and accusations relating to the turnover of senior staff. Both have denied any wrongdoing.

The panel has commenced its work, UCT said. “Members of the UCT community whom the panel wishes to interview will be contacted directly,” it added.

The decision to create the panel dates back to 8 October last year, when deputy council chair Pheladi Gwangwa said the council would give its “immediate attention” to the process of establishing the panel so it could report back by the end of 2022. In December, media reported that Gwangwa had been deposed as deputy council chair.

A month later, on 22 November, a confidential report outlining the institutions’ governance challenges was delivered to the country’s higher education minister Blade Nzimande. The minister is yet to give feedback on the report.

UCT declined to comment on when it expects the panel to publish its findings.

The post UCT appoints panel to investigate governance crisis appeared first on Research Professional News.

Streamlined immigration rules could mean less red tape for foreign researchers

The government of South Africa is looking to introduce a points-based visa system to attract the skilled immigrants its economy needs, the country’s president said in his State of the Nation address last week.

In his 9 February speech to Parliament, Cyril Ramaphosa highlighted a lack of skills as one of South Africa’s main challenges to growing its economy. “One of the key ingredients for economic growth and competitiveness is the ability to attract skills that the economy needs,” he said.

Ramaphosa said that the government is exploring options to streamline skilled immigration regulations following a “comprehensive review” of the work visa system.

He named Mavuso Msimang, a “real veteran in the civil service” as the mastermind behind the reform plans, which include a “more flexible points-based system to attract skilled immigration” and a “trusted employer scheme” to make visa application easier for large investors.

Universities’ visa headaches

Currently, South Africa offers special visas for people who have “critical skills” that the country needs. The list of such skills is updated regularly. However, the practicality of obtaining critical skills visas has become a stumbling block for foreign researchers working in the country and for their employers.

Temporary visa holders currently often have to go back to their country of nationality to renew work permits—a process that can take months, and which is a source of anxiety and frustration for foreign researchers in the country.

However, it is not clear whether the government’s reforms will reintroduce a rule it scrapped in January last year that allowed foreigners graduating with scarce skills from the country’s universities to be fast-tracked towards permanent residency status. The move angered researchers at the time.

The post South Africa to explore points-based skills visas appeared first on Research Professional News.

Sasol funds four research chairs and six fellowships with National Research Foundation

South African energy and chemicals company Sasol announced a R40 million (US$2.2m), five-year investment in clean energy research with the country’s National Research Foundation on 10 February.

The funding will support four national research chairs—two in energy and power systems, and two in green hydrogen—the pair announced. It will also support six postdoctoral fellowships in green hydrogen, energy storage and waste utilisation.

The two chairs in energy and power systems modelling will be hosted by the universities of Pretoria and Cape Town. Ramesh Bansal from UP has been appointed to one of the chairs. He is the group head of the university’s electrical, electronic and computer engineering department. Sunetra Chowdhury, associate professor of electrical engineering, will occupy the UCT chair.

Chowdhury told Research Professional News that the appointments come at a “strategic moment” for South Africa in view of the country’s energy crisis and accompanying push for renewable energy deployment. “I strongly believe that it will give me the opportunity to build effective research collaboration links between academia and industry in South Africa and abroad,” she said.

The chairs in green hydrogen have been awarded to Tien-Chien Jen, head of the mechanical engineering department at the University of Johannesburg, and Prathieka Naidoo from Stellenbosch University.

“In addition to the innovation this chair will bring, it will build capacity for next-generation researchers and postgraduate students,” Jen told Research Professional News.

Meanwhile, three of the postdoctoral fellowships will be managed by the universities of Johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape Town, and the other three by the University of the Witwatersrand, the Durban University of Technology and North-West University.

"The two-year fellowships will include dedicated research time at Sasol’s research facilities in Sasolburg," said Sasol in a statement.

NRF and Sasol said they have jointly committed R150 million to industry-linked research and innovation projects over the next five years to support clean energy programmes.

Sasol was founded in 1950 when the Apartheid government looked to turn the country’s considerable coal reserves into liquid fuel in a bid to reduce the regime’s dependence on energy imports.

Today, the company produces synthetic fuels and operates in the chemical, nuclear, coal tar and electricity sectors. Environmental groups say Sasol’s Secunda plant near Sasolburg is one of the greatest point-source emitters of greenhouse gases in the world.  

The post South African fossil fuel giant invests in ‘green’ energy appeared first on Research Professional News.

Researchers question move that grants government extraordinary powers

South African energy policy experts have questioned the raft of measures unveiled by president Cyril Ramaphosa last night to address the country’s energy crisis, which will grant the government extraordinary powers.

Ramaphosa (pictured) declared the country’s unprecedented frequency of rolling blackouts a national state of disaster with immediate effect in his 9 February State of the Nation address.

“The energy crisis is an existential threat to our economy and social fabric,” Ramaphosa said. “Our most immediate task is to reduce the severity of loadshedding in the coming months and ultimately eliminate loadshedding altogether.”

Ramaphosa said the state of disaster, gazetted the same day, will enable the government to provide concrete support to ailing businesses in the food production, storage and retail supply chain. These actions, he said, include the rollout of generators, solar panels and uninterrupted power supply technology.

Ramaphosa also said he would appoint a minister of electricity to work with national electricity utility Eskom. However, he did not name the person who would get the job.

South Africa is grappling with an ailing power network caused by an ageing fleet of coal power stations that regularly break down, rampant corruption and vandalism, and a distribution system ill-equipped to handle new generating technology, such as solar and wind.

The past three months have seen rolling blackouts implemented to save the grid from failing—known as loadshedding—intensify to unprecedented levels, with power cuts experienced for 10 hours a day or more.

‘Stop planning and start doing’

However, many of the country’s energy experts are not convinced that Ramaphosa’s measures are going to solve the problem.

Monique le Roux, senior researcher at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, says a state of disaster is not necessary. She says it is “unclear” how it will fast-track the measures needed to solve the crisis, such as the publication of a clear power-purchase plan for the country, which could have been prioritised already.

“The feeling is definitely that the government should stop planning and start doing,” she told Research Professional News.

As for the new ministerial post, le Roux said its success will “wholly depend” on who gets the role and the freedom they will have to implement reform—which is questionable given the state of disaster declaration.

“Whether the new minister of electricity will truly have the scope and authority to make the necessary tough choices is already debatable in light of the fact that a state of disaster has been declared and that ultimate responsibility now lies with the minister of cooperative governance,” she added.

Political analyst Everisto Benyera of the University of South Africa told Research Professional News that neither a minister of electricity nor a state of disaster were necessary.

He said there’s a risk that declaring a state of disaster could lead to a repeat of what happened during the Covid-19 pandemic, when the extraordinary powers and funding mechanisms instated under a state of disaster led to widespread looting of government funds.

Indeed, he said, the question was not whether the money would be stolen but how much of it would be stolen. “Whether the money will be looted or not is a foregone conclusion.”

A version of this article also appeared in Research Europe

The post ‘Unclear’ how state of disaster will solve South Africa’s energy crisis appeared first on Research Professional News.

Entrepreneurs urge government to take action as Africa’s former “wonder child” loses its lead

South African innovators have called on the country’s government to relax regulations stifling technology startups, as fresh data show the nation’s performance in this area has dipped below the level of several African competitors.

South Africa, “once the wonder child” of African startup funding, saw its performance drop last year, according to the African Tech Startups Funding Report 2022, published on 6 February by the tech startup news site Disrupt Africa.

The country’s “78 startups to raise funding represented a decline of 12.4 per cent on the previous year, and the US$329,707,000 they netted was down 2 per cent on the total of US$336,405,000 achieved in 2021”, the report states.

This places South Africa at odds with Africa as a whole, which saw both investments and number of startups grow to unprecedented levels in 2022, bucking a global slump in the tech startup investment landscape caused by a deteriorating financial climate.

“It has been a disappointing year for South African funding, and [this] reflects a general dwindling in the ecosystem of late which has seen the country nosedive from the leading market on the continent to fourth place,” the report states.

South Africa is being “truly overshadowed” by Nigeria and Egypt, whose “vibrancy and enthusiasm” are attracting investment, it adds.

Exchange rules ‘chief culprit’

The South Africa Startup Act Movement, a collective of South African startup investors, incubators, accelerators and founders formed in 2020, is calling on the country’s government to relax its red tape for emerging businesses.

The collective says the chief culprit holding back South Africa’s tech startup growth is the country’s restrictive exchange control system, which requires prior permission for raising foreign capital for local companies.

“South Africa’s perseverance with Apartheid-era exchange controls [and] restrictions on offshore holding companies and intellectual property transfers make it challenging to attract international investors, and so our entrepreneurs are physically moving their businesses into investor-friendly jurisdictions to raise funding,” Adrian Dommisse, a lawyer and member of the SA Startup Act Movement’s steering committee, told Research Professional News.

As a result, investment flows not into South African companies but into offshore companies, explaining the drop-off in South Africa’s ranking, he added.

The SA Startup Act Movement wants the government to relax exchange controls and other cumbersome rules for emerging companies with an annual turnover smaller than 100 million rand (US$5.7m).

Without reforms, South Africa “will lose technology talent, lose investments, lose jobs and one of the few avenues that can revive our ailing economy”, SA Startup Act Movement chair Matsi Modise writes in a report published by the collective this month.

All is not gloom, the Disrupt Africa report notes. South Africa “does have its merits”, including a higher prevalence of late-stage investment funding than in other parts of the continent. “But the country’s ecosystem could do with a renewed burst of energy that is unlikely to be forthcoming given prevailing macroeconomic conditions within the country,” it says.

The post South Africa’s tech startup performance plummets appeared first on Research Professional News.

Research institutions hope membership will bring fresh funding and collaboration opportunities in the life sciences

South Africa’s admission as the first African member of the international Human Frontier Science Program will help to foster relationships, the country’s chief research funder has said.

On 31 January, the National Research Foundation of South Africa announced that the country was the first in Africa, and the 16th overall, to become a member of the HFSP, an organisation founded in 1989 to advance international research and training in the life sciences by funding high-risk, interdisciplinary, collaborative research.

The NRF said the admission should encourage the South African government to invest more in science. “As a member, South Africa will work closely with other HFSP members to support innovative basic research; apply novel and interdisciplinary approaches; and enable scientific exchanges across national and disciplinary boundaries to address fundamental biological problems,” it said in a statement.

Membership could result in more funding for South African science from overseas, the NRF told Research Professional News. “Through joint programming, funding and research with partners, South Africa will increase its vital scientific and innovation skills development,” it said.

Additional resources

The South African Medical Research Council and the NRF will both be members of the organisation, the NRF said. Over the next two years, the two organisations will not add new funding but will leverage their existing programmes to participate in the joint opportunities provided by the HFSP. Long term, both will aim to invest additional resources in joint programmes.

The selection process for being admitted to the organisation included an assessment of the level of governmental and non-governmental support of research, the level of basic science activity of universities and institutes and the level of education in the country, such as the number of PhDs awarded and number of scientists involved in research.

The post South Africa secures seat on ‘frontier science’ programme appeared first on Research Professional News.

Academics blame corruption and weak leadership for South Africa’s spate of violence against university staff

A recent rise in violent attacks on academic staff constitutes a crisis, South African academics have said. 

A virtual discussion hosted by the Academy of Science of South Africa on 27 January followed what the University of Fort Hare described as an “assassination attempt” earlier that month on vice-chancellor Sakhela Buhlungu, which claimed the life of Mboneli Vesele, his head of security. It is believed Buhlungu was targeted for supporting an investigation into alleged corruption at the institution.

This was the latest in a number of such attacks against university staff, the meeting heard. In 2018, Gregory Kamwendo, arts faculty dean at the University of Zululand, was murdered, allegedly by an assassin hired by a colleague, after Kamwendo reportedly had uncovered a fraudulent PhD scheme at the institution.

In the discussion, Themba Mosia, vice-principal of the University of Pretoria and former chair of the Council on Higher Education, said he had hired security after receiving threats against his life more than once. 

Chairing the discussion, academy president Jonathan Jansen said the levels of violence currently seen against university staff were unprecedented, but that they also reflected longstanding challenges facing South Africa as a country.

“This is unbelievable in the context of higher education, yet common in our country,” Jansen said.

Growing problem

Mosia said the increase in violence and criminal threats could be due to a scramble for the large resources that universities hold, such as infrastructure budgets.

“Because the economy has been declining for a while and as a country we are battling with corruption, people have become very sophisticated in the manner in which they can swindle funds,” he said.

Mosia shared a gloomy view of the future. Higher education, he said, is a reflection of the state, which has failed itself and its citizens. “Unless the government urgently takes serious action, we will see more and more of these occurrences.”

He added that he viewed a post in industry as safer, currently, than being part of a university’s leadership, and he added that simply boosting security would not bring about change. “We need to get to the core of the problem.”

Lacking leadership

Nomalanga Mkhize, a historian based at Nelson Mandela University in Gqeberha, said that the increasingly corporate way universities were run, with centralised executive powers, had fuelled greed and eroded the academic project. “Giving too much power to executive management and councils has led us to this,” she said.

She also dealt a harsh blow to vice-chancellors and other institutional leaders, insisting they had lost the essence of what it meant to be an academic leader. “The focus is no longer on creating great leaders, fostering academic projects and creating institutions that will offer value to societies,” she said, adding that some leaders seemed to prioritise social media stardom over academic leadership.

Mkhize said that more needed to be done to curb the spike in violent and aggressive culture, calling on vice-chancellors to “deal with these urgent matters of protecting staff”.

The post Campus violence and threats ‘have reached crisis point’ appeared first on Research Professional News.

Cape university spends R1.5 million on diesel power monthly as government “consults” on way forward

With universities in South Africa facing rising costs from intensifying periods of rolling blackouts, researchers fear what will happen to their work should the money run out.

The University of the Western Cape in Cape Town says it spends 1.5 million rand (US$87,000) a month to keep its fleet of backup power diesel generators running when the grid power is switched off.

The institution shared the sum—more than a professor’s annual salary—with Research Professional News as the country’s Department of Higher Education and Training announced it was consulting universities on ways to deal with the blackouts, known as loadshedding.

“I will update the public on these efforts following the conclusion of our internal consultation processes,” higher education and science minister Blade Nzimande said on 24 January.

Finite funds

Loadshedding is intended to protect the integrity of the national grid when generating supply does not meet demand. As South Africa enters its third month of uninterrupted loadshedding, with blackouts lasting 10 or more hours a day, questions are being raised about how universities should fund the additional cost of dealing with this, given their already tight finances.

“The situation is untenable and requires clear short, medium and long-term solutions from government. Getting universities off grid may be a long-term solution but for now universities require assistance to remain functional,” said Phethiwe Matutu, chief executive of Universities South Africa, the umbrella group for the country’s 26 universities.

A big worry for researchers is what happens if universities’ money for diesel runs out. 

Lonnie van Zyl, chief officer of the University of the Western Cape’s Institute for Microbial Biotechnology and Metagenomics, says his lab runs well on backup generator power for now. He hopes the university will give him plenty of notice if it is about to run out of funds for diesel, so that plans can be put in place to save rare or irreplaceable samples that require cold storage.

Van Zyl’s main concern is his lab’s six -80C freezers. These house microbial isolates and rare samples, some taken from deep-sea trenches using special robots. “If those freezers go down, there is a real risk that we lose those samples forever,” he says.

This was close to happening during the December holidays, when the building’s generator ran out of diesel. “I had to come in at two o’clock in the morning once or twice,” says Van Zyl. “Worst case, I was going to move these -80C freezers out and run them off my own generator.”

No respite in sight

Loadshedding has been a recurring phenomenon in South Africa since 2007. Until last year it was intermittent, with long periods of sustained power between periods of cuts. However, in the second half of 2022 the frequency of power cuts rose to unprecedented levels, with no respite in sight.

Matutu said that Universities South Africa had discussed its concerns around loadshedding with Nzimande and the Department of Higher Education and Training. “The department assured us that they are attending to them,” she said.

Research Professional News asked the department to comment on whether it has considered offering financial support to universities to meet the costs of operating under loadshedding. The department did not respond to the question.

Van Zyl says there is a “very thin silver lining” attached to loadshedding, since it forces students and staff to think creatively about how to carry out their research. “We will make a plan. South Africans are very resourceful,” he says.

The post Power crisis eats into South Africa’s university budgets appeared first on Research Professional News.

Scientific advisory group recommends halting Musina-Makhado Special Economic Zone development

The proposed development of the Musina-Makhado Special Economic Zone in South Africa’s Limpopo province poses a threat to local natural heritage, a science advisory committee has found.

The zone, designated in 2017 but not yet operational, is planned for the area surrounding the Beitbridge Border Post between South Africa and Zimbabwe—one of the busiest ports of entry to South Africa and its chief gateway to the Southern African Development Community.

However, the Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies, which is hosted by the Academy of Science of South Africa, argues that the development will degrade biodiverse areas and irrevocably threaten the ecological integrity and conservation goals of the Vhembe Biosphere Reserve, which includes the northern part of Kruger National Park.

“Given its potentially detrimental impact on water resources in the area, the development could threaten sensitive wetlands within the Vhembe Biosphere Reserve, including the Makuleke Wetlands,” notes a report on 18 January from Sage’s subcommittee on the zone’s environmental and heritage implications.

Water security

The report says that development would pose a threat to the region’s water security and would be likely to cause problems for water users in Limpopo and outside South Africa, including in drought-prone Zimbabwe.

It will also increase South Africa’s national greenhouse gas emissions, the report adds. “The development will yield high levels of air, soil and water pollution and have a detrimental impact on human health, and degrade the ecological functionality of the area.”

The subcommittee, made up of scientists from across South Africa, recommends that the national government as well as the Limpopo provincial government suspend activities relating to the development.

“This includes vegetation clearance for fencing and bulk services infrastructure related to the project. Furthermore, relevant [UN agency] Unesco officials should urgently engage with appropriate South African national authorities to commission an independent assessment of the potential implications of the proposed zone,” it states.

Neither the government of the Limpopo province nor the government of South Africa has responded to the report yet.

The post Beitbridge economic zone ‘may harm wetlands’ in South Africa appeared first on Research Professional News.

Renewables could help create operational stability at radio astronomy and medical radiocarbon facilities

National research facilities in South Africa say they are looking at alternative power sources to protect them against the country’s persistent rolling blackouts.

The system of rolling blackouts, called loadshedding, is intended to protect the integrity of the national grid when generating supply does not meet demand. Since September, it’s been an almost daily occurrence—and for the past few weeks outages have struck for as many as 10 hours a day.

Research Professional News asked the country’s National Research Foundation-managed research facilities about their power supply and how they were faring under increased frequency of loadshedding. These are their replies.

Radio astronomy

The South African Radio Astronomy Observatory, which manages the country’s high-profile radio telescopes including MeerKAT, is looking to establish a solar power plan to stabilise its operational costs.

The timeline for the solar plant coming online is in the order of 5 to 10 years, Khulu Phasiwe, head of communications at the observatory, told Research Professional News. For now, critical systems in the Karoo as well as the Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory have backup power systems.

iThemba

South Africa’s medical radioisotope production facility in Cape Town run by iThemba Labs is currently spared rotational loadshedding. However, it has an agreement with the national power utility to reduce power when requested at short notice.

Faïçal Azaïez, director of iThemba Labs, told Research Professional News that the institution had developed plans for renewing and extending its backup power capacity at its Cape Town site, as well as to invest in solar capacity. However, these projects are subject to funding availability.

Optical astronomy

The country’s optical observatories, managed by the South African Astronomical Observatory, have been able to operate so far, its director Petri Vaisanen says.

However, he adds, the backup systems have significant cost implications, as both its Sutherland and Cape Town sites need to be powered continuously due to the data and data product services they provide to international and national researchers.

Environmental observation

The South African Environmental Observation Network has Uninterruptible Power Supply units installed at all its offices and nodes that can run for two hours. On top of that, the network’s hosting organisations have back-up generators that start automatically, says Theo Jongwana, governance and operations manager.

Aquatic biodiversity

The South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity in Grahamstown has been able to operate under the recent loadshedding conditions, its managing director Angus Paterson says. However, fuelling the back-up diesel generators that enable the institution to do so are incurring a "high cost", he added.  

How is your lab affected by loadshedding? Email [email protected].

The post South African facilities eye solar to solve energy woes appeared first on Research Professional News.

South Africa’s power crisis could push science out of country’s poorly resourced institutions, biochemist warns

The rolling blackouts crippling South Africa’s electricity grid are wreaking havoc at labs around the country—not least at ‘previously disadvantaged’ universities, which battled with resources for research even before the current energy crisis hit.

“My mass spectrometers don’t have on and off buttons. They are not meant to be turned off during their lifetime,” says Edwin Madala, a biochemist who has spent the last few years building a world-class spectrometry lab at the University of Venda in the Limpopo province.

However, in 2022 alone, one of his instruments went off more than ten times due to power outages.

South Africa’s university landscape is deeply divided, with a handful of universities performing the lion’s share of the country’s academic research, while the others—which historically catered to non-white South Africans and were not set up for research—have struggled to catch up.

Over the past two decades, the South African government has been working to build research capacity in these left-behind institutions, but the country’s power crisis threatens to undo the progress made so far.

At Madala’s lab, diesel generators normally take over when power is switched off for ‘loadshedding’—a rolling blackout system designed to keep the integrity of the grid when national electricity demand exceeds supply. In the gap between the grid goes down and the generators kick in, Uninterrupted Power Supply units are meant to supply seamless power.

However, with blackouts reaching 10 hours per day in recent months, the backup systems are failing, says Madala. The generators run out of diesel, and the UPS systems are left to power what they can, for as long as they can, during two-to-four-hour loadshedding blocks. This is running down their batteries quickly, meaning they cannot function properly.

As a result, there’s a real threat to equipment in the University of Venda’s science building, which Madala currently values at around R60 million (US$3.5m). He does not run his spectrometers at the moment. While he knows of colleagues at other universities who are running theirs, he says that poses a great risk. “Many instruments are not going to make it.”

His is not the only faltering lab on Venda’s campus. Madala says his colleagues in biology have come into campus only to find their -80 degree freezers off, with irreplaceable samples thawing inside. “People’s research careers are melting in front of their eyes,” he says.

The way things are, Madala says he is considering moving his research to a better-resourced university if the situation does not improve. At Venda, diesel is being burnt to power residences and lifts, while essential research equipment is left to languish.

“These disadvantaged institutions are not research-oriented, so when you say that ‘we must prioritise diesel for equipment’, you are speaking a foreign language,” he says. “I’m tired of fighting this diesel war.”

The post ‘Many instruments are not going to make it’ appeared first on Research Professional News.

Academic union considers new offer after rejecting “insulting and derisory” 3 per cent pay hike

The union representing academic staff at the University of Cape Town in South Africa is waiting for members to consider a new pay offer before embarking on a strike, its leader has said.

Kelley Moult, president of the UCT’s Academics Union, told Research Professional News that the union would hold off on implementing its strike action until at least 27 January, to allow members to consider the pay offer.

While she did not divulge what the offer was, the previous deadlock between the union and the university’s salary negotiations committee was over a proposed 3 per cent pay hike—something the union described as woefully low in a statement on 20 January announcing its intention to strike.

“Academic staff are committed to go on strike over what they feel is an insulting and derisory pay increase of 3 per cent offered for the 2023 year,” it said. “The universities that UCT has historically used as comparators in setting pay increases have been able to offer their employees at least a 6 per cent increase.”

Strategic under-prioritisation

The threatened strike action—the first in the university’s century-long history—comes at a time when South African tertiary institutions are preparing to reopen in February. Moult confirmed to Research Professional News that 87 per cent of the Academics Union membership had agreed to go on strike.

“The wage increment, and the negotiation process that has led us to this point, is an illustration of the strategic under-prioritisation of the academic project at our institution. We believe that this needs to be rectified,” she said.

Moult said on 25 January that the revised offer from UCT management had been brought to members to consider, and that the poll would close the same day.

“Because the Academics Union remains committed to resolving the dispute, we have undertaken not to implement the strike certificate by issuing any strike notices up until the end of business on Friday 27 January to allow the offer to be reduced to writing, and to allow our members to consider whether to accept,” she told Research Professional News.

In a letter to the UCT community on 21 January, vice-chancellor Mamokgethi Phakeng said the institution’s executive had been “working tirelessly” to settle the dispute. “It is important to emphasise that the executive is approaching every step of the process in compliance with the university’s governance procedures,” she wrote.

This week, Phakeng, answering via university spokesperson Elijah Moholola, could not be drawn for further comment by Research Professional News, noting that “the engagements are ongoing and due to this, we [the university] are not in a position to comment further on the matter at this stage”.

The post University of Cape Town strike on temporary hold appeared first on Research Professional News.

Experiments could be forced overseas as country’s energy crisis deepens

Researchers at several South African labs say the country’s increasingly frequent blackouts have left them unable to carry out experiments, crippling critical work.

South Africa’s power network is in crisis, with an ageing fleet of coal power stations that regularly break down, rampant corruption and vandalism, and a distribution system ill-equipped to handle new generating technology, such as solar and wind.

In Johannesburg, paleoclimatologist Stephan Woodborne needs these faltering power supplies to run the African continent’s sole accelerator mass spectrometry facility, which uses radiocarbon dating to determine the age of historical artefacts, as well as biological, hydrological and geological samples. The facility is used by researchers from across South Africa and beyond.

At the moment, the power goes off several times per day, meaning neither he nor Tebogo Makhubela at the University of Johannesburg—a geochronologist who uses a noble gas mass spectrometer in his lab—are able to run their experiments.

“There are instances where the amount of time we have power, say four hours, is just not enough to make a complete measurement,” said Makhubela. He plans to go to Germany in April to carry out the experiments he no longer can do in South Africa.

Rolling blackouts

Since 2007, South Africa has implemented rolling blackouts—dubbed loadshedding—when the country’s ailing power stations cannot meet demand.

The situation has deteriorated further since 2019, when unprecedented ‘stage 6’ loadshedding was implemented for the first time. Stage 6 means the power is off 6-12 hours every day, spread over blocks that usually last two to four hours.

Last year was the worst to date, with loadshedding occurring nearly every day since September. This month the national power utility Eskom announced there was no end in sight to the interruptions.

Mitigating measures

Many life scientists told Research Professional News they have been forced to use backup power systems including uninterrupted power supply (UPS) units and diesel generators to continue their work. But these are rarely sufficient to run facilities that require a lot of power. They are also expensive.

Tulio de Oliveira, a bioinformatician based at Stellenbosch University, said a long-term solution would be to centralise more of South Africa’s research infrastructure. 

“Backup systems are important but they can become very costly if every single lab is trying to build that,” he said. “Having core resources that are protected against loadshedding would be a more effective use of resources.”

Woodborne said he cannot run his experiments when loadshedding is higher than stage 2, when the power goes off 2-4 hours per day. 

The 100 million rand (US$5.8m) accelerator generates three and a half million volts when in use, and must be safely switched off before the power goes off to avoid damaging the equipment—a process that takes two hours. Once off, it takes about six hours to get the particle beam back up and running to where it can start making measurements.

“We can’t even prepare the samples under stage 6,” he said. “I have no idea when we’re going to get down to stage 2, which is when I will be able to start running again.” He added that the situation is likely to damage South Africa’s reputation as a place that can do cutting-edge science.

Losing the edge

According to Makhubela, the power crisis is also harming the country’s ability to attract scientific talent. “We are now at a point where even postdoctoral fellows from smaller economies in Africa and Asia are just not interested in coming to South Africa because they fear not being able to generate data for their research,” he said.

The situation could also undermine efforts to ensure South African research samples and field data can be studied without leaving the country, undoing years of work to stop ‘helicopter science’, he said.

“Just as our raw materials are processed abroad to make final consumer products, in research we will see increased shifts towards South Africa only being good enough for field data and sample collection,” he said.

A version of this article also appeared in Research Europe

The post Frequent blackouts cripple South African labs appeared first on Research Professional News.

National taskforce to probe security concerns following “assassination attempt” on Fort Hare vice-chancellor

South Africa’s higher education and science minister has said that a national taskforce will probe security concerns at the country’s universities after a suspected assassination attempt against a vice-chancellor claimed his bodyguard’s life.

Blade Nzimande (pictured) made the announcement at the funeral service of Mboneli Vesele who was killed on 6 January in a shooting at the University of Fort Hare, in what the university described as an “assassination attempt” on its vice-chancellor Sakhela Buhlungu. Vesele headed up Buhlungu’s security team.

In his 14 January remarks, Nzimande promised that the department, along with UFH and law enforcement agencies, will “ramp up efforts to ensure the safety of the university community”. This includes establishing a national taskforce to probe institutional security and threats to staff and students arising from attempts to uncover corruption and mismanagement in universities.

“We are going to leave no stone unturned to fight against corruption in our institutions and also to ensure that UFH is protected as an institution. We want to say to the criminals that they won’t win, we are very determined,” Nzimande said.

A Department of Higher Education and Training spokesperson told Research Professional News that the taskforce would include representatives of Universities South Africa, the South African College Principals Organisation, student leaders and trade unions. “More details will be provided later,” the spokesperson said.

During a media briefing held at UFH’s Alice campus last week, Nzimande indicated that the attack on Buhlungu, along with attacks on two other senior officials in March last year, may be linked to ongoing investigations by the government’s Special Investigating Unit into alleged corruption and maladministration at the university, as well as alleged fraudulent enrolment of post-graduate students.

“In terms of our assessments, these events [the murders and attempted murders] are most likely linked to the work of the SIU,” he said.

Nzimande said he, along with his officials, was determined to root out any acts of corruption, maladministration and institutional capture in the country’s post-school education and training institutions. “This includes putting [in place] appropriate safety and security measures to protect both our employees and staff.”

Nzimande said the SIU and the South African police service’s elite investigations unit, known as the Hawks, will continue to lead on all matters pertaining to criminal investigations related to the attacks on university staff and will report independently on their outcomes.

The post Nzimande to ramp up safety on university campuses appeared first on Research Professional News.

Fresh national statistics underscore decline in country’s gross R&D spending

South Africa’s R&D spending saw a real-term drop of 7.6 per cent in the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a new report.

Collected by the Human Sciences Research Council and published on 18 January, the report measures public and private spending in South Africa for the financial year ending February 2021.

In that year, gross expenditure on R&D (GERD) was 33.541 billion rand (US$1.98bn), a drop of 7.6 per cent on the previous year after taking inflation into account.

However, due to a shrinking economy, GERD as a proportion of GDP dropped only slightly, from 0.62 per cent in 2019-20 to 0.61 per cent in 2020-21.

The largest decrease in R&D expenditure occurred in the business sector, followed by the higher education sector and science councils. The R&D spending of state-owned entities decreased by 5 percentage points to 14.2 per cent in 2020-21, a drop of 394 million rand.

Glenda Kruss, executive head of the Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators, said all sectors could work on strengthening their capacity to fund and perform R&D.

“As we emerge from Covid-19 and tackle the many challenges that face us nationally and globally, our capacity to fund and perform R&D in order to innovate is vital,” she said. 

“Policymakers and scholars should engage this data robustly, to inform deliberation about growing R&D to reach national investment targets, and to address our socioeconomic development challenges,” she added. 

The post South African R&D dropped 7.6% in first year of pandemic appeared first on Research Professional News.

New head of Universities South Africa’s working group on languages vows to keep up momentum

The incoming chair of Universities South Africa’s working group on teaching and learning African languages has said that much still needs to be done to incorporate the country’s indigenous languages into academia.

In a statement last month outlining the priorities for Usaf’s Community of Practice for the Teaching and Learning of African Languages (CoPAL) for the coming year, Nobuhle Hlongwa said that using African languages in science, for example, required a “radical transformation” of their role in academia.

But that should not dissuade efforts, she said: “When we are afraid to make use of African languages, they will remain on the periphery.” Hlongwa leads the School of Arts at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

Language audit

South Africa has 11 official languages, yet its academic output is dominated by two: English and Afrikaans. In 2022, the South African Centre for Digital Language Resources started an audit across 26 South African public universities of resources and infrastructure in place to support the implementation of the country’s Language Policy Framework. The framework is designed to develop and strengthen indigenous languages in scholarship, teaching and learning at tertiary level.

Hlongwa will work closely with Langa Khumalo, her predecessor at CoPAL, on completing the audit. “We look forward to seeing a comprehensive picture of what universities have done, what resources are available and what should be prioritised,” she said.

She added that the second vice-chancellors’ colloquium on language practices that took place last year laid a solid foundation for the work to begin. Audits have been completed or are underway at several universities in the country, and more are due to take place this year.

Hlongwa encouraged universities to continue exploring partnerships and collaborations to reach their goals. “Partnerships are a way to fast-track the intellectualisation of African languages,” she said, adding: “The most important thing for me is to position African languages at the centre of the transformation agenda of the higher education landscape.”

The post ‘Radical’ action needed to move African languages from periphery appeared first on Research Professional News.

Shooting targeting Fort Hare head claims life of security chief

South Africa’s higher education community was left reeling this week following an attempt to murder the vice-chancellor of the University of Fort Hare in South Africa in which a member of his staff died.

Mboneli Vesele, who headed vice-chancellor Sakhela Buhlungu’s security detail and also served as his driver, was killed during what the university called an “assassination attempt” on Buhlungu (pictured), when gunfire left a car outside Buhlungu’s residence in Dikeni in the Eastern Cape province riddled with bullets on 6 January. 

A statement from the Department for Higher Education on 7 January said: “Although investigations are at an early stage, all indications are that the assailant (or assailants) was (or were) targeting Prof Buhlungu, who at the time of the incident was not in the car.”

South Africa’s higher education minister Blade Nzimande said: “This attack is not only an attack on the University of Fort Hare but also an attack on the entire Post-School Education and Training sector.”

Nzimande, who visited UFH on Wednesday this week appealed for calm while investigations are carried out. He called on university and college leaders to engage with his department if they have security concerns.

UFH said it had asked for trauma and counselling services to be made available to students and staff, and to Vesele’s family.

‘A culture of impunity’

While the exact reasons for the shooting are not yet known, many informed observers believe Buhlungu was targeted for wanting to root out corruption in the institution.

According to media reports, this was the second attempt on Buhlungu’s life after his home was fired at in March 2022. And in May 2022, the university’s former fleet and transport manager, Petrus Roets, was shot in what some described as a hit associated with his role at the university.

According to Universities South Africa (USAf), these attacks began after various counts of alleged corruption at Fort Hare came under investigation by the government’s Special Investigating Unit. The alleged fraud reportedly related to “cleaning and gardening tenders and fraudulent issuing of qualifications”.

“There seems to be a growing sense of impunity on the part of criminal syndicates in their opposition to anything ethical in our society,” said Sizwe Mabizela, vice-chancellor of Rhodes University, which is also located in the Eastern Cape.

“We should never allow such acts of violence to become normalised,” said Nozipho January-Bardill, chair of Nelson Mandela University, also in the Eastern Cape. She called on authorities “to support and protect whistleblowers and those who are trying to root out fraud and corruption in higher education and in our society broadly”.

UFH was the first university in South Africa to accept Black students and has been credited with exceptional contribution to Black academic training and leadership development on the African continent.

The post Attempt to murder vice-chancellor shocks South Africa appeared first on Research Professional News.

Vice-chancellor credits outcome to “hard work and long hours” spent improving South African university’s programmes

The University of South Africa has welcomed the continued accreditation of its accounting courses after media reports published last year raised concerns that the courses would lose their accreditation from South Africa’s professional accounting body.

In a newsletter sent out last month, Unisa vice-chancellor Puleng LenkaBula wrote that the move “bears testimony to the hard work and long hours invested by Unisa’s management and the College of Accounting Sciences in improving the relevant programmes and addressing any deficiencies previously identified”.

In July 2022, the university denied claims that some of its accounting degrees were on the verge of being de-accredited by the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants. At the time, Saica chief executive Freeman Nomvalo said an accreditation visit to Unisa had identified areas of improvement, which the university had already submitted a plan to address.

In her statement last month, LenkaBula wrote that Unisa would “continue to work with Saica to promote and enhance quality assurance, monitor progress on improvement plans and ensure that Unisa’s accounting sciences programme offerings remain relevant and aligned to the needs of the market as well as current trends in the profession”.

The post Unisa retains accreditation for accounting degrees appeared first on Research Professional News.

But institutional differences mean report's findings will not be universal, minister adds

A damning report highlighting experiences of racism at South Africa’s Stellenbosch University could provide lessons for other institutions of higher learning in the country, according to higher education minister Blade Nzimande.

However, he said the government was not planning to turn any of the report’s recommendations into best practice guidelines for the rest of the country’s universities. Nzimande (pictured) made the comment in a 12 December answer to a written Parliamentary question from Inkatha Freedom Party MP Sanele Zondo.

The report, released in November, formed part of a public inquiry led by retired judge Sisi Khampepe. Set up in June following several high-profile instances of alleged student-on-student racism at the Stellenbosch University, it found that racial transformation policies were not reflected in practice and that Black students and staff still experience “subtle forms of racism and exclusion”.

At the time of the report’s publication, Stellenbosch rector Wim de Villiers said the university will work harder to increase the representation and sense of belonging of previously under-represented groups. 

“This is a sobering moment for the university,” de Villiers said. “It is evident that Black staff members and students do not feel welcome here, despite our deliberate transformation efforts to date.”

In his written reply, Nzimande said every South African university should study the report, its findings and recommendations, and consider what lessons, if any, might apply to them. 

But, he added, since South Africa’s universities have different histories, cultures and circumstances when it comes to racial representation and experiences, “there is no one solution to a problem that could be applied across the sector in this regard”. 

The post Nzimande: Stellenbosch race report could help others appeared first on Research Professional News.

Hartebeesthoek ground station will help Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre talk to its lunar rover

South Africa’s national space agency Sansa will provide communication support for the United Arab Emirates first mission to the moon.

The Emirates Lunar Mission’s Rashid Rover blasted off from Earth on 11 December aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, United States.

After the launch Sansa signed an agreement with the UAE’s Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre that will see Sansa’s Hartebeesthoek Ground Station provide direct communications between the centre and the rover after it lands on the Moon’s surface.

Sansa committed to commissioning two antennas, a 12-metre S-band antenna and a 26-meter parabolic antenna, to track and communicate with the spacecraft.

‘No room for error’

The lunar spacecraft is expected to travel for five months to the moon. During that time a UAE engineering team will visit South Africa to prepare for the mission.

Tiaan Strydom, acting Sansa commercial services executive, said the organisation will be thorough in its support. “Lunar missions are complex, amassed with daunting challenges and have little to no room for error.”

The mission, added Strydom, is a good build-up for South Africa to prepare for supporting manned moon missions, which are now a focus for many players in the space industry. 

In a tweet published on launch day, president of the Dubai Civil Aviation Authority, Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, described his nation’s moon mission as an accomplishment.

“Since we set our sights on the stars as a nation, our ambition has always been matched by our resolve. Today we took the next step in that journey,” he tweeted.

The post South Africa supports Emirati mission to the moon appeared first on Research Professional News.

Radio astronomy construction contracts worth €300 million awarded in Africa and Australia

The Square Kilometre Array Observatory has celebrated the start of construction of its world-leading radio telescopes in both South Africa and Australia.

Unveiling ceremonies were held in both countries this week. In South Africa’s Northern Cape province, science and higher education minister Blade Nzimande (pictured, left) announced the award of SKA contracts worth more than €200m for telescope infrastructure to Australian and South African companies.

Nzimande said the government welcomes the opportunities that will flow into the country as a result of the construction activities.

“Local companies will benefit from construction contracts [and] local people will find jobs. The financial resources flowing into the country will also uplift the economy of South Africa,” he told the 5 December ceremony.

€100m in antenna contracts

The SKA Observatory has also entered into more than 40 contracts worth €100m over the past year and a half for the manufacture of antennas for both telescopes. 

Nzimande confirmed there are contractual obligations that will need to be met. In South Africa, the lead infrastructure contractor must spend a proportionate amount locally by providing a range of sub-contract opportunities to local small and medium-sized companies. They also need to employ, train and transfer skills locally and to fund community development.

Perth celebrates

In Australia, the SKA installation about 800 kilometres north of Perth will comprise more than 130,000 two-metre-high antennas.

Speaking at the Australian event, science and industry minister Ed Husic said the project would benefit the local community, business and Australia for generations to come. “We should all be proud of our involvement in this project. This is a historic day, and I am sure we will see many breakthroughs from the SKA project,” he said.

When completed, the SKA is expected to expand the frontiers of science, including finding out more about the ways galaxies form and evolve, and even how life might arise in the universe.

The post Construction of Square Kilometre Array begins in South Africa appeared first on Research Professional News.

Transformation officer hire and broad engagement pushed faculty to the front at leading African university

The Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Cape Town in South Africa is the institution’s highest achiever against its transformation targets. This is according to UCT’s Transformation Report 2021, released last week.

It’s the third year in a row that UCT produced the report, which measures the institution’s achievements against its benchmarks for transformation, diversity and inclusion. Titled ‘Fear, flame and metamorphosis: transformation, diversity and inclusion in uncertain times’, the report says the Faculty of Health Sciences is making standout progress.

The report uses criteria for transformation across a number of themes, including racial and gender staff diversity, student access and support, institutional responses to discrimination, and decolonisation of the curriculum.

“While no faculty or non-academic department met all the criteria of this benchmark, the Faculty of Health Sciences, Research Office and Faculty of Science came close,” the report notes.

“In 2021, the faculty hired a transformation officer who was placed in the deanery and provided both strategic and operational support to ensure the faculty’s transformation goals were achieved,” it says. The health science faculty also produced publications and academic engagements on race and decolonisation, among other social themes.

FHS also reported that it has created a post for a gender diversity specialist, who will be recruited in 2022. This role, the faculty said, will assist the university to strengthen its capacities concerning teaching, learning and research on sexual and gender diversity, and more broadly to create an affirming environment for LGBTQI+ persons and capable future healthcare professionals.

FHS was one of 13 UCT departments and faculties that submitted completed benchmark results in 2021. In a statement, the university said the annual reports have proved to be a “useful and standardised way to track actions” related to transformation, diversity and inclusivity.

Past struggles

In forewords to the report, senior UCT executives admit the university has struggled to truly implement its gender and racial equality ambitions.

Elelwani Ramugondo, deputy vice-chancellor of transformation, student affairs and social responsiveness, said UCT was still “grappling with the legacies of colonialism and apartheid”.

UCT’s embattled vice-chancellor, Mamokgethi Phakeng, who faces an investigation over allegations that she misled the university’s senate and council about the reasons for departure of a senior executive, assured in her preface to the report that more initiatives are being put in place to create an academically inclusive environment.

“I also thank our Black academics, who have provided insights from their own lived experiences and made practical suggestions that we could implement,” she said, adding: “They have helped to bring us where we are today on UCT’s transformation journey.”

Phakeng denies wrongdoing in the matter for which she is under investigation.

The post Health faculty leads UCT on transformation—report appeared first on Research Professional News.

Project will examine how well indoor spraying that started in 2019 has reduced transmission

South Africa’s health department has granted the country’s medical research council 14.5 million rand (US$850,000) over two years to implement a malaria surveillance system.

Malaria is not widespread in South Africa. But it does occur in provinces that border the wetter, warmer countries to the east and north where the parasitic disease is more common.

The funding will look for evidence of reduced malaria transmission, especially in the KwaZulu-Natal province bordering Mozambique, said Rajendra Maharaj, director of the South African Medical Research Council’s Malaria Research Group.

Understanding transmission is vital if South Africa is to meet its target of eliminating malaria by 2025.

‘Strengthened cross-border footprint’

Maharaj’s group will manage the programme, which will determine how well the Indoor Residual Spraying malaria control programme jointly launched in 2019 by Mozambique and South Africa to eliminate malaria in southern Mozambique and northern KwaZulu-Natal has worked, he told Research Professional News.

“We have been able to strengthen our cross-border footprint and developed collaborations with other research institutions, universities and NGOs to implement monitoring and evaluation systems to determine the impact of IRS on malaria transmission and to accelerate attainment of malaria-free status,” he said.

The Malaria Research Group will work with national and provincial health actors and research institutes to monitor the changes in mosquito populations as well as reductions in malaria cases. These are proxy indicators for the impact of IRS on transmission, said Maharaj.

South Africa has seen a slight increase in malaria cases in 2022 according to the country’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases. 

The NICD believes a lift on travel restrictions after the pandemic contributed to the spike. Human mobility is strongly associated with the spread of infectious diseases, NICD says, adding that this “presents a challenge to South Africa’s malaria elimination aspirations.”

The post South Africa puts 14.5m rand into malaria surveillance system appeared first on Research Professional News.

Reviews will identify resource gaps that hamper academic multilingualism

The South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR) has officially began rolling out language audits in the country’s higher education institutions—a step towards offering education in more of the country’s myriad languages.

The audits will measure the types of resources available at public universities and identify what is still required to implement the Department of Higher Education and Training’s Language Policy Framework from 2020.

Multilingualism in higher education institutions will mean greater access to learning, student success, social cohesion and transformation, said linguistics professor Langa Khumalo, executive director of SADiLaR and chair of Universities South Africa’s Community of Practice for the Teaching and Learning of African Languages, in a statement.

“The audit will give us a sense of what is available and from there we can begin to develop a strategy to fill in the gaps on the one hand and ensure that we effectively use the resources available across the academy so that no institution gets left behind,” he said.

Addressing the language barrier

South Africa’s language policy framework is designed to develop and strengthen indigenous languages in scholarship, teaching and learning at the higher education level. The country has 11 official languages, but its academic output is dominated by two: English and Afrikaans.

Pilot language audits took place at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and the North-West University ahead of the initiative’s official rollout on 4 November at the University of Mpumalanga. Further audits kicked off at the Vaal University of Technology on 22 November and at the University of South Africa in Pretoria on 28 November. More will follow in due course.

At VUT’s rollout, vice-chancellor and principal Dan Kgwadi said it is time that languages are treated equally in higher education. “All languages are as important as others. It’s imperative to develop languages, not only at the university level but at the societal level as well,” he said.

The audits comprise an institutional questionnaire and discussions with staff, students and workers. Kumalo said the audits were imperative as the implementation of the language framework will require significant resources: “Without these resources and a way for institutions to pool [them] and share strategies and expertise, this framework will be a non-starter.”

The post South Africa embarks on university language audits appeared first on Research Professional News.

Institutions claim to be “African” yet Black foreigners experience discrimination, roundtable hears

South African universities, despite positioning themselves as inclusive and engaged African institutions in a global world, are failing to deal decisively with the growing issue of academic xenophobia, an online debate heard this week.

The debate, the ninth Presidential Roundtable webinar, hosted by the Academy of Science of South Africa, was held on 24 November. Themed “The threat of academic xenophobia to the future of SA universities”, it aimed to find ways to develop progressive employment regimes built on inclusive academic values.

The discussion comes as Assaf is investigating reports of anti-Black xenophobia in South African universities. The investigation, which started in August, is led by Assaf president Jonathan Jansen from Stellenbosch University, who also chaired this week’s roundtable.

Precious Simba, an education professor also from Stellenbosch, told the roundtable that a quick internet search of 15 public South African universities had given her an impression of institutions that are accommodating to foreign academics, positioning themselves as ‘African’.

But, she said, the reality across the sector is different. “In day-to-day operations, there seems to be a consistent effort to push out African foreign national academics…There is some hypocrisy that lies there.”

She also noted that evidence suggests local Black academics seemed to be preferred to African foreign national ones. “I feel like what is happening in the universities is a hierarchisation of the ‘better Black’. So there is an inclusion of Black people in certain parts of the university. But even in that inclusion, there is a Black person that the labour policies preferred, and by doing so we start seeing the pushing out and exclusion of foreign nationals."

South African anger

Evance Kalula, a Zambia-born law professor based at the University of Cape Town, said the complex history of South Africa has turned its citizens into angry people, and he said this anger is unfortunately spilling over into the universities, where foreigners are seen as blocking space for locals.

“You South Africans are angry people. You are angry against each other and foreigners, but the anger that you people bear is also very self-destructive,” he said.

Jansen concluded that colleagues in academia should remember that an institution should by its nature be a place of non-discrimination.

“Universities don’t appoint on a nativeness policy. If that be the case, then we might as well be a church, mosque or synagogue," he said.

The post Anti-foreigner ‘hypocrisy’ in South African institutions appeared first on Research Professional News.

Science takes prominence as South African president is first head of state hosted by King

Science and technology cooperation took prominence this week when South African president Cyril Ramaphosa arrived in the UK, the first state visit hosted by King Charles III.

The UK will support South Africa’s hydrogen economy ambitions, set out in its Hydrogen Society Roadmap earlier this year. The UK government will support South African infrastructure development and provide the country with grant-funded technical assistance, prime minister Rishi Sunak announced on 22 November.

The two countries also announced a raft of new science collaboration projects in health and climate change research. And the two countries a memorandum of understanding to strengthen science cooperation.

The memorandum of understanding sets out eight broad priority areas for science, technology and innovation cooperation. These include the Square Kilometre Array radio telescope, the ocean economy, health, agricultural technology and climate change.

“Today we’re moving into a new era of our dynamic trade relationship with South Africa, with exciting collaboration on infrastructure, clean technology and renewable energy sources,” UK trade secretary Kemi Badenoch said in a 22 November statement.

A royal welcome

On 22 November, King Charles III hosted a banquet at Buckingham Palace in Ramaphosa’s honour. The South African president is the first head of state to be hosted by Charles who became king when his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, died in September.

At the banquet, Ramaphosa said: “We look forward through this visit to reinforce our cooperation in areas such as investment and trade, in education and skills development, in health and in science and innovation.”

Ramaphosa also visited the Francis Crick Institute, the largest biomedical research institute in Europe, for a briefing on science collaborations between South Africa and the UK. The two countries announced nine new collaborative research projects during the visit on 23 November.

Funding will also bolster South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases in Johannesburg and its genomic sequencing work to study antimicrobial resistance in Africa. The institute played a leading role in South Africa’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The UK’s Teesside University will work with South Africa’s Stellenbosch University to deepen their collaboration on hydrogen technology. South Africa’s higher education and science minister Blade Nzimande, who has accompanied Ramaphosa on the state visit, will visit Teesside with a delegation.

“Teesside University has been at the forefront of efforts to build up the regional hydrogen economy working with industry partners. The ambition is to broaden this cooperation with Teesside and Cardiff universities in the new year,” South Africa’s Department of Science and Innovation said in a statement. 

The post Hydrogen, health and climate change top Ramaphosa UK visit appeared first on Research Professional News.