HIV/AIDS experts from five continents across the world will be in Cape Town, South Africa, from 13-15 November 2017 to probe the dynamics of a changing HIV/AIDS epidemic and to address issues related to prevention, treatment and care. The experts will be participating in the 13^th AIDS Impact Conference, which is hosted by Stellenbosch University (SU) and the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC).

The behavioural and psychosocial science gathering — which was first convened in 1991 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands — is an international dialogue that looks at the human face of the epidemic.

“Despite the vast importance of medical inquiry and advancements in the fight against HIV, attending to the humanitarian and social 'face' of the epidemic are invaluable," explained Dr Sarah Skeen of Stellenbosch University, co-chair of the conference.

The HSRC's Professor Heidi van Rooyen, who is a co-chair of the conference added that, “If we are to stem the epidemic in Africa, then addressing poverty, gender inequality and gender-based violence, which fuel the spread of HIV among vulnerable populations, requires our urgent attention."

Continuing from where the 2015 meeting ended, the 2017 Cape Town conference, titled 'What will it take to end the epidemic?' aims to promote pioneering work on understanding the dynamics of a changing epidemic, with a key focus on the latest avenues for prevention, treatment and care.

The meeting will bring together delegates from 54 countries who are new to the field, as well as seasoned researchers, prevention workers, community members, policy makers, and other key stakeholders from universities, institutes, and organisations around the globe.

Among the speakers will be Professor Fred Ssewamala, Director of the International Center for Child Health and Asset Development at Columbia University. His plenary will address Cost-effectiveness of Savings-led Economic Empowerment Interventions for AIDS-Impacted Children, and their impact on adolescent's health, material wellbeing and adherence to ART medication (for those who are HIV positive). Professor Linda Richter, a Distinguished Professor and Director of the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Human Development at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, will be discussing the relevance of the values underlying the Sustainable Development Goals.

Delegates will share  multidisciplinary understanding, state of the art research, international good practice – and a deep understanding of the importance of the human experience in all aspects of HIV prevention, treatment and care.  “If we forget the human face behind the epidemic the virus will triumph – if we grasp the needs of humanity we can pinpoint a turning point in the journey to eradicate AIDS," says Professor Lorraine Sherr of the International Scientific Board.

The AIDS Impact Conference is held bienially and is one of the leading platforms for understanding, updating and debating the behavioural, psychosocial and community facets of HIV in light of changing social conditions and medical advances. This year, the conference organisational team, led by Prof Mark Tomlinson and Dr Sarah Skeen of SU and Prof Heidi van Rooyen and Ms Bridgette Prince from the HSRC, anticipate delegates from 54 countries.

The  plenary session will include speakers from leading institutions such as the International Center for Child Health and Asset Development at Columbia University; the Carolina Population Center; the University of the Witwatersrand; the School of Public Health & Family Medicine at the University of Cape Town; the Division of Prevention Science in the Department of Medicine at the University of California; the University of New York; the Department of Public Health at the University of Copenhagen; the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC); and the MRC Clinical Trials Unit at University College London as well as activists and voices from those with HIV.

The Conference will be hosted at the newly developed Century City Conference Centre located near the Cape Town CBD.

About the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC)

The HSRC was established in 1968 as South Africa's statutory research agency and has grown to become the largest dedicated research institute in the social sciences and humanities on the African continent. It does cutting-edge public research in areas that are crucial to development.

The HSRC's mandate is to inform the effective formulation and monitoring of government policy; to evaluate policy implementation; to stimulate public debate through the effective dissemination of research-based data and fact-based research results; to foster research collaboration; and to help build research capacity and infrastructure for the human sciences.

The Council conducts large-scale, policy-relevant, social-scientific research for public sector users, non-governmental organisations and international development agencies. Research activities and structures are closely aligned with South Africa's national development priorities.

About Stellenbosch University (SU)

Stellenbosch University (SU), celebrating its centenary in 2018, is one of the oldest universities in South Africa. With its 10 faculties (AgriSciences, Economic and Management Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Engineering, Military Sciences, Arts and Social Sciences, Science, Education, Law and Theology), it boasts the highest weighted research output per full-time academic staff member of all South African universities and the second-highest number of scientists in South Africa who have been ranked by the National Research Foundation (NRF) – 429 in 2017. 

With 24 research chairs under the NRF's South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChi) and seven Centres of Excellence, the University is regarded as a leader in the fields of biomedical tuberculosis research and management, wine biotechnology, water research, sustainable energy, animal sciences, and mathematical biosciences, amongst others.

As preferred research partner, SU also participates in various international academic networks. The institution has over 150 bilateral partners in 44 countries on 6 continents and more than 4 300 international students from more than 100 different nationalities.

​​What does the Springbok Captain Eben Etzebeth and his All Black counterpart Beauden Barret, have in common? Both were in the news for suffering from concussion in the past month. Add to that the names of Warren Whitely, Martin du Toit, Poerie van Rooyen and Jaco Coetzee – who have all had to leave the rugby field for some time in October after getting a hard bump to the head. And earlier this year the rugby career of Maties captain Beyers de Villiers was cut short after he was also diagnosed with serious concussion.

That is why the creation of the Advanced Concussion Unit at the Institute for Sport and Exercise Medicine (ISEM) holds good news not only for rugby players, but all other contact sports, including hockey and boxing, where players often suffer a blow to the head.

“Ninety-nine per cent of concussions heal perfectly,” says Dr Pierre Viviers, Senior Director of the SU Campus Health Services (CHS), who is also involved with ISEM. According to Pierre the risk is low as long as the evidence are being followed. “But if you suspect a concussion, the player must be removed from the field.”

Pierre often helps at international games as one of five medical doctors who must decide whether a player suffered a blow that could mean concussion and should leave the field. With his colleagues at CHS they also do a lot of social impact work, such as helping out at the recent Klapmuts Sevens Tournament, to help with the treatment of injuries such as concussion.

It is this ‘suspect and remove’ principle that will hopefully get a big push in the next year when Pierre and his colleague Prof Wayne Derman, director of ISEM, will make a big effort to empower coaches – from schools’ level – with better training in recognising and managing concussion.

A concussion programme was introduced at the University in 2003 already, with recreational and more professional players benefiting. “We see between 300 and 350 concussions per year. This gives us access to very valuable research information.” The Advanced Concussion Unit will use this type of information to understand and manages this potentially very dangerous state even better. The Unit does not only want to improve determining the physiological recovery of players, but also put concussion treatment modalities in place to shorten the timeline of more complicated injuries. Several overseas universities (Washington in the USA, Calgary in Canada and Bath in the UK) have already indicated that they would like to form part of the research effort.

According to Pierre concussions are very dangerous among teenagers and adolescents, where the brain is still growing. “Players are often back on the field too soon. If they then suffer from another concussion, it’s not a new injury, but an existing one that is worsened.” And often the knowledge to manage concussions safely lack on school and club level.

Dr Leslie van Rooi, Senior Director of Transformation and Social Impact says Pierre – and Prof Wayne Derman – show that research can have a wider impact, also on the different communities around us. “By doing what we do daily we can have a positive effect on the lives of sport stars and young upcoming athletes.”

​The media release of Universities SA

Prof Faadiel Essop from the Department of Physiological Sciences at SU has been invited by the International Union for Physiological Sciences (IUPS) to serve on its Board of the General Assembly (BGA) for the 2017-2021 term.

The IUPS was founded in 1929 and is the global umbrella organisation for physiology. One of the new BGA's immediate tasks is to create a report on the status of physiology to be presented to the General Assembly at the quadrennial IUPS Congress in 2021.  The BGA will also be responsible to ensure that the recommendations of the 2017 report – Physiology: Current Trends and Future Challenges, are implemented over the next four years.

Prof Essop says while physiology as a discipline is thriving in Southern Africa, he hopes to focus on aspects of the report, such as the establishment of a network platform for physiologists in Africa.

“We are already closely working with the African Association of Physiological Sciences, but a more formal platform will allow for easier exchange of postgraduate students and staff between African universities."

Another priority is to showcase physiology to a broader audience: “I believe it will help scientists to make sense of the current flood of genomic data. We need to understand what all the genome and protein sequence information actually mean within the context of the whole organism. It is precisely in this regard that physiologists can help fill the gap and collaborate with geneticists and bioinformaticians," he adds.

Prof Louise Warnich, Dean of the Faculty of Science, says the nomination is a significant recognition of Prof Essop's international standing and that he will make a valuable contribution to the BGA.

Prof Essop is a full professor in SU's Department of Physiological Sciences. Since 2013 he has twice served as president of the Physiological Society of Southern Africa. In 2015 he was appointed as chair of the Research Advisory Committee of the Heart and Stroke Foundation of South Africa, and in 2016 elected as vice-president of the African Association of Physiological Sciences. 

Diabetes is now South Africa's third leading cause of death after heart disease and HIV/AIDS. Its causes are complex, and to combat it researchers need to better understand the interplay of multiple genes in combination with environmental factors.

For her PhD, obtained through Stellenbosch University's Division of Chemical Pathology in the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, Dr Zelda Vergotine set out to trace genes associated with insulin resistance, the precursor of diabetes. “I focused on insulin resistance, because that's the point where we're hoping to interrupt the development of diabetes while it is still reversible," she says.

She chose a mixed-ancestry population in Bellville South, Cape Town for her study. Following global trends, prevalence of type 2 diabetes in mixed-ancestry South Africans increased alarmingly from 10,8% to 26,4% over the past two decades – the country's second highest prevalence after that for the Indian population.

“A lot of literature concerns genes that contribute to insulin resistance, but the specific candidate genes that may predispose South Africans haven't been studied," says Vergotine.

She explains that even though the genes may have already been identified in other populations, gene-to-gene or gene-to environment interactions and certain related risk factors may influence the susceptibility to metabolic disorders in different populations.

Vergotine investigated two candidate gene variants previously associated with insulin resistance and diabetes in European Caucasians, namely PPARG (peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma) and IR S1 (insulin receptor substrate). PPARG is involved in nuclear transcription, controlling activities and metabolism inside the cell. IR S1 is involved with how insulin binds to the insulin receptor protein, leading to the cascade of cellular processes that promote usage or storage of glucose.

The research uncovered that a genetic variant of PPARG , the Pro-12 allele, was strongly associated with insulin resistance: When it interacted with the additional unfavourable IR S1 variant (IR S1 Gly972Arg), it increased the risk for diabetes considerably.

“What makes the study stand out is that we found a gene-gene interaction with these two genes working together in this process. Genetic prediction of disease is greatly improved if genetic variants with strong effects are identified, either on their own or with other variants," Vergotine explains.

“By identifying genetic susceptibility for insulin resistance combined with predisposing risk factors, we can encourage high-risk patients to make use of primary lifestyle prevention programmes.

“Given its links with increased risk of developing insulin resistance and diabetes, I think the biggest issue in this particular population (although it's a national concern) is the rising obesity rate."

Spurred by a 2014 World Health Organisation report that two in five South African deaths are related to noncommunicable diseases (NCD s), the Department of Health has developed the Strategic Plan for the Prevention and Control of NCD s, naming type 2 diabetes as one of the most important. Priority has been given to reducing four key risk factors – physical inactivity, diet, and tobacco and alcohol use – responsible for driving this health crisis.

Photo: Pixabay

The Faculty of Science had a total of 12 presentations at the annual Stellenbosch Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) conference this year, with earth sciences lecturer Dr Bjorn von der Heyden receiving the runner-up prize for the best presentation overall at the conference.

Prof Louise Warnich, Dean of the Faculty of Science, says the participating lecturers have to be commended for going the extra mile to enhance excellence in teaching and student success.

Most of the presenters were recipients of awards from SU's Fund for Innovation and Research into Learning and Teaching (FIRLT). The fund was established in 2005 to encourage a culture of innovation and reflection in teaching and learning at the University.

Dr Von der Heyden, a lecturer in the Department of Earth Sciences, submitted two abstracts and both were listed among the top six. The one looked at industry-based geologists as a valuable resource from whom students could acquire additional knowledge of the applied aspects of their degree.

The Faculty of Science had a total of 12 presentations at the annual Stellenbosch Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) conference this year, with earth sciences lecturer Dr Bjorn von der Heyden receiving the runner-up prize for the best presentation.

Prof Louise Warnich, Dean of the Faculty of Science, says the lecturers have to be commended for going the extra mile to enhance excellence in teaching and student success.

Most of the presenters were recipients of awards from SU's Fund for Innovation and Research into Learning and Teaching (FIRLT). The fund was established in 2005 to encourage a culture of innovation and reflection in teaching and learning at the University.

Dr Von der Heyden, a lecturer in the Department of Earth Sciences, submitted two abstracts and both were listed among the top six. The one looked at industry-based geologists as a valuable resource from whom students could acquire additional knowledge of the applied aspects of their degree. Students had to conduct telephonic interviews with South African geologists to gain insight into the roles and responsibilities of a professional geologist. All in all, the shared experience meant the class was exposed to the equivalent of 150 years of professional experience.

In the second project he investigated different peer- and near-peer learning interventions with his third year economic geology students. The project was designed to put more ownership of learning into the student domain, and to test whether this learning was effective as well as de-colonised. The peer-learning interventions involved presentation by fellow undergraduates, while the near-peer learning included lectures and videos by postgraduate students. Both interventions were compared to traditional lectures. Student feedback indicated that although students enjoyed learning from their peers, the best learning was attained when a lecturer was involved.

A separate award for the best presentation by a lecturer in the Faculty of Science was awarded for the first time and went to Dr Christine Steenkamp from the Department of Physics. Dr Steenkamp and colleagues used one of the five dimensions in Legitimation Code Theory to analyse five years of test and exam papers of Physics 114 and 144.

“The aim was to understand why students struggle to adapt to principle-based learning. In other words, the best strategy for a first year physics student is to know the few basic principles and then apply them from the most basic to the more abstract applications. But instead students continue to try and memorise the applications. And of course there are hundreds of examples of these applications in the text book," she explains.

Dr Steenkamp used the concept of semantic gravity, an analytical tool to determine levels of conceptual and contextual meaning, to analyse the type of questions asked in the first semester's tests and exam for Physics 114 and 144. The semantic gravity scale ranges from abstract theory to applications to the real world.

She describes the process as empowering: “For the first time we as lecturers had a language to talk about the level of questions in a paper. We were able to ensure that each paper had the desired fractions of the different semantic gravity levels. We focused on the essentials by explicitly assessing basic principles and communicating this clearly to the students."

Thus far, she says, the results are encouraging.

Prof Ingrid Rewitzky, vice-dean: teaching and learning in the Faculty of Science, says Dr Steenkamp has to be commended for the amount of work and effort that has gone into the project: “The judges were impressed by the theorizing of the work, the extent to which she had made Legitimation Code Theory her own, as well as the clarity with which she explained it. It was also evident that a lot of thought went into the data analysis.

From the Department of Physics, Prof Kristiaan Müller-Nedebock assessed how undergraduate students in physics progressed with their usage of a high-level software programme, called Mathematica, that has come to replace the simple calculator and mathematical tables.

Profs Richard Newman and Brandon van der Ventel are investigating the establishment of a mini film studio in the Department of Physics. The idea is to create short movies that will illustrate physics concepts relevant to their teaching.

From the Department of Mathematical Sciences, Dr Jacques Masuret applied gaming elements to first year Mathematics lectures in an attempt to increase students' engagement with the content, as well as their motivational levels. The Teaching and Learning Forum in the Faculty of Science also recently presented a workshop on the online education gaming platform, ClassCraft. The game is fully customizable and can be adapted by the lecturer or 'Game Master' to address particular issues or behaviors in class. 

Other presentations were:

Ms Bessie Burger (Mathematics) – “Development of interactive content for Mathematics"

Dr Marnel Mouton (Botany and Zoology) – “Making 'toxic' waves: Expanding students' biology concept knowledge through semantic movement";

Dr Susanne Fietz (Earth Sciences) – “Teaching concepts through local field data collection".

Dr Hanlie Adendorff (Teaching and Learning Hub) – “Science students' conceptions of academic support" and “Online tutor training short course in Science"

Dr Ilse Rootman-le Grange (Teaching and Learning Hub) – “Designing an academic skills module through the lens of Legitimation Code Theory's Autonomy dimension".

On the photos, from left to right: Dr Jacques Masuret, Dr Ilse Rootman-le Grange and dr Bjorn von der Heyden.

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) announced Prof Willem Visser from Stellenbosch University as one of a select group of distinguished members for his outstanding contribution to the field of computing and information technology.

ACM, the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society, selected the 2017 group from institutions around the world for their contributions to a wide range of technical areas including accessibility, computational geometry, cryptography, computer security, computer science education, data structures, healthcare technologies, human-computer interaction, nanoscale computing, robotics, and software engineering.

In a media release issued on Wednesday 8 November 2017, ACM President Vicki L. Hanson says computing technology is transforming society at every level: “In naming a new roster of distinguished members each year, ACM underscores that the innovations which improve our lives do not come about by accident, but rather are the result of the hard work, inspiration and creativity of leading professionals in the field.”

Prof Visser, a full professor in the Computer Science Division at SU, is regarded as a world leader in the field of software engineering. He was one of the pioneers in applying model checking to detect defects in programs written in modern programming languages. He is best known for his work on the Java PathFinder model checker which was developed while being a researcher at the NASA Ames Research Center, in Mountain View, California.  Since moving back to Stellenbosch in 2009 his main focus has been on probabilistic symbolic execution, a novel combination of symbolic analysis and model counting to allow precise reasoning about the reliability of software.

He was part of a six member team that was responsible for updating the Software Engineering curriculum guidelines published in 2014. From 2012 he is an elected member-at-large of the ACM SIGSOFT Executive Committee.

Prof Visser holds an A-rating from South Africa’s National Research Foundation and is vice-dean: research in the Faculty of Science at SU.

Prof Visser says he is greatly honoured even more so as one cannot apply for selection, but has to be nominated by a peer. This nomination should include a motivation and several letters from fellow scientists.

Those who control the information in today's information economy also have more power, said Professor Joseph Stiglitz, University Professor at Columbia University and also a fellow at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS), on Tuesday (14 November 2017).

Stiglitz, the recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2001, was the speaker at a public STIAS lecture at the Wallenberg Centre in Stellenbosch.

He spoke about information economics and said it had a transformative effect on economics and economic policy.

“Information economics provided explanations of phenomena that previously had been unexplained and upset longstanding presumptions, including that of market efficiency."

“It showed that markets are not always competitive and this lack of competition is due to a lack of information."

Stiglitz pointed out that the move towards an information economy has also given market power to those who dominate the grabbing of information.

“We are moving towards a world in which a few firms have a disproportionate amount of information and therefore a disproportionate market power."

In this regard, he referred to companies such as Amazon, Facebook and Google.

“Platforms such as Amazon, Google, Facebook or Apple can gather information and used it to engage in discriminatory pricing."

“They control the information."

Stiglitz said that information may be the really scarce commodity today.

He called attention to a new set of information problems linked to privacy, transparency, and disinformation that may pose a great threat to the functioning of the economy and democracy.

Stiglitz called for a new regulatory framework to deal with this.

• Photo: Prof Joseph Stiglitz speaking at the STIAS lecture.
  
• Photographer: Anton Jordaan
  

Dean's Advisory Committee on Transformation – a brief update on progress

As you will be aware, the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences (FMHS) is committed to building an inclusive and welcoming environment where all students and staff are able to develop to their full potential. One of the initiatives to support our efforts in this regard was the establishment of the Dean's Advisory Committee on Transformation (ACT) in mid-2016.

The ACT comprises a broadly representative group of undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as staff from various environments: Faculty Management, Academic Departments, Student Administration, Student Support, Residence Management and Tygerberg Hospital Management. 

Having agreed its terms of reference and rules of engagement, the committee has met quarterly over the past 18 months. It has held robust and illuminating discussions on a range of topics, such as “Fees Must Fall", “Men are Trash", “the Anglo-Afrikaner movement", “Tygermaties Confessions", Bullying and Rape Culture and the need for strengthening student and staff wellness services.

One of ACT's first discussion points was the faculty's core values. This resulted in a recommendation to replace 'commitment' with 'compassion'. After further consultation, the values were amended to the following: excellence, integrity, compassion, inclusivity, innovation and accountability. The committee has since begun to explore how these faculty core values can be made more visible and how we can ensure they are more fully reflected in our day-to-day decisions and actions.

Linked to Human Rights Day this year, a ceremony was held in which three plaques were unveiled in the foyer between the Clinical and Education Buildings displaying the preamble to the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa in English, Afrikaans and Xhosa. This serves as a constant reminder of the central importance of the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights, as a guide to our engagement with each other as South African citizens. More recently, a Faculty Transformation Charter has been proposed and a task team has been set up to work on this. 

I trust you find this update helpful. If there are any matters related to transformation at the Faculty you would like to bring to the committee's attention, or if you would like to join the committee as a member, please contact us at email: deanfhs@sun.ac.za.
 

Kind regards 

Prof Jimmy Volmink
Dean

Summary:
* The restoration of fynbos is possible in areas where pines used to grow for up to 30 years, because there are still enough native fynbos seeds left in the soil.
* To save costs, time and effort when rehabilitating sites, pine plantations and areas invaded by pines should be cleared within 40 to 50 years.

[copy]
Here is some advice for landowners who want to remove pine trees from their properties in the hope of seeing fynbos plants grow there again: if you have any choice in the matter, do so before pine trees have grown there for more than 30 years old. The longer you wait, the less likely the chances that any fynbos seeds will be left in the soil to sprout successfully. This is according to research in the South African Journal of Botany that was conducted by researchers from Stellenbosch University and the City of Cape Town.

Soil and plant samples were analysed by Stellenbosch University postgraduate student Alistair Galloway of the Department of Conservation Ecology and Entomology.

Galloway says he decided on the topic because not as much research has gone into the restoration of fynbos veld after the removal of pines as have been done about the clearing of acacia trees. His efforts not only led to him now publishing his first peer-reviewed paper, but also receiving his department's Daniel Booysen Memorial Award for the best 4^th year project conducted in 2016. Galloway recently also received a Rector's Award for Academic Excellence from Stellenbosch University.

His co-authors and supervisors are three respected researchers of matters relating to the impact of invasive species on the Cape Floral Kingdom's indigenous fynbos plants. They are Dr Pat Holmes of the City of Cape Town's Environmental Management Department (and an Extraordinary Associate Professor of the Department of Conservation Ecology and Entomology), Dr Mirijam Gaertner of the Nürtingen-Geislingen University of Applied Sciences in Germany, and Prof Karen Esler of Stellenbosch University's Department of Conservation Ecology and Entomology. Galloway's project was funded through the Centre of Excellence for Invasion Biology based at Stellenbosch University, to which Gaertner, Holmes and Esler are also affiliated.

The study was conducted in the Helderberg Nature Reserve, which is managed by the City of Cape Town. It's a reserve that Galloway, who hails from Somerset West, has frequented since childhood. For his research project, Galloway compared sites where naturally occurring vulnerable Cape Winelands Shale fynbos grow with those on which Pinus radiata pines were planted in the 1960s. The study sites were all burnt in the autumn of 2015.

Trees in three of the plantation sections were felled between 1992 and 1994. Over the past 20 years, the natural plants that used to grow there have had an opportunity to regrow. Trees from another three sections were only felled in the winter of 2014, and were therefore under pine plantations for about 50 years.

The sooner, the better for fynbos

Galloway took soil samples to find out if there were still any viable fynbos seeds left in the soils of the former plantation sites. He also noted how the natural vegetation grew back after the trees were removed and the areas burnt. A high number of seeds from different types of native fynbos species were still to be found in the soils of areas from which 30-year-old pines were removed. The fynbos plants also regrew at a similar density to that of the undisturbed fynbos areas. However, the same could not be said of the areas on which 50-year-old trees had stood, as there was little left of the native seed bank stored in the soil.

According to Galloway, seeds that survive in the soil makes it possible for some of the plants that used to be found there to regrow on the 30-year-old plantation sites. Active restoration steps to re-introduce species from surrounding areas might be needed on the 50-year-old sites, to ensure the recovery of native plants that once grew there, and to prevent possible soil erosion on the cleared area.

“Because there's very little native seed left in the ground, restoration work on older sites will be much more time consuming and costly," he says.

According to Prof Esler, pine plantation and invasion management in the Fynbos biome should consider for how long pines have grown in an area. The shorter, the better for the rehabilitation of fynbos veld.

“This helps to maintain the native seed bank and the recovery potential of fynbos, and minimises the need for active restoration," adds Prof Esler. “Long-term follow-up control of several alien species will also need to be implemented so that the alien seed bank can be depleted, and the survival of restored native species can be maximised."

Reference: A.D. Galloway, P.M. Holmes, M. Gaertner, K.J. Esler (2017). The impact of pine plantations on fynbos above-ground vegetation and soil seed bank composition, South African Journal of Botany

Photo caption:
Stellenbosch University student Alistair Galloway on one of his field trips during the course of his research work.

“I have worked for SU for 17 years and this workshop was without a doubt the most worthwhile training that I have attended during this time and is long overdue. It has opened my mind to considering new ways of doing things,” reads one participant’s feedback. “I did not know what to expect when I went. In fact, I thought it was going to be boring, but my mind set was transformed completely,” another comments.

But why are SU staff in need of a ‘new normal’? Monica du Toit, Head of the Transformation Office, says the idea of only one ‘normal’ is probably the biggest stumbling block at a university, where there is a continuum of possibilities and potentials to manage. “The course aims to investigate these continuums of worldviews, abilities and experiences.” Embracing a new normal at SU, with changes based on the feedback, has been presented since 2015. “We also have two-hour sessions on themes included in the three-day course that can be presented at faculties and departments.”

Working with Monica is prof. Julian Sonn, lecturer in Transformational Leadership at the Business School. With his credentials and experience, participants have noted that the “diverse knowledge and background of facilitators were very useful and complementary”.

Also looked at during the three days are the experiences of people on campus living with disabilities. When a visually impaired person explains the challenges regarding getting around; or a braille officer describes the process of making text books or tests available in braille, one tends to revisit the assumption that the world operates in the way you do.

Since the participants come from all kinds of backgrounds, what they take from the workshop will depend on their own experience. One person commented on her “better understanding of the students’ plight and their reasoning behind the decolonisation, structural violence that exists on the campus.” Another said the “discussion on ‘rape culture’ lead me to understand some things”. And: “The training opened my eyes to issues I didn't realise existed”.

Monica says at one feedback session a participant said the interaction with colleagues gave him so much hope for the future that he decided against selling his property with the goal to emigrate.

“For me the value lies in seeing staff from different age groups, environments and disciplines engaging on the kind of university we want to be for each other and the youth. The University isn’t a soulless mass of institutions. Staff also struggle with identities and our past, and they want students to have access and the best possible chance to grow.”

Individuals or faculties interested in attending a workshop can send an e-mail to mdt2@sun.ac.za.

More points to ponder:

• Discussion held inside and outside the workshop venue enlightened me on some of the prejudices I have held about white South Africans.
• Better understanding of the effect of internalised racism.
• An eye opener - I think I was living in my own dream world - I now know that people do go the extra mile to make life for others better.
• Hearing stories first hand from people who live with challenges every day creates more awareness and sensitivity to their plight.
• A wholesome way of learning how much I still need to learn and change in not only 'accepting' but embracing the diversities (some of which I didn't even know about!).

SU Teaching Excellence Awards 2017

Stellenbosch University initiated an annual system of institutional teaching excellence awards in 2017.

The awards were designed to acknowledge excellent teaching at institutional level and offered an opportunity to value reflective and contextually-aware teaching. The aims of the awards were:

• To show support at an institutional level for excellence in teaching and learning in higher education;
• To generate a cadre of academics who are able to provide inspiration and leadership in teaching in their disciplines and across the institution, and
• To generate debate and public awareness about what constitutes teaching excellence.
  
   
  
  Candidates were nominated by their faculties on the basis of a teaching portfolio and the applications were then evaluated by an institutional selection committee.
  
   
  
  The selection committee has approved the following 13 awards for 2017:
  
   

1. Dr E.M. Adendorff (Dept. of Afrikaans and Dutch, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences)
2. Mr J.C. Bekker (Dept. of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Engineering)
3. Mr W.A. Bishop (School of Accountancy, Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences)
4. Prof. N. Davids (Dept. of Education Policy Studies, Faculty of Education)
5. Ms E. de Jager (School of Accountancy, Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences)
6. Prof. C. Esterhuysen (Dept. of Chemistry and Polimer Science, Faculty of Science)
7. Dr D. Forster (Dept. of Systematic Theology and Ecclesiology, Faculty of Theology)
8. Prof. K. Jacobs (Dept. of Microbiology, Faculty of Science)
9. Ms M. McKay (Dept. of Viticulture and Oenology, Faculty of AgriSciences)
10. Dr M. Nel (Dept. of Public Law, Faculty of Law)
11. Prof. R. Rudman (School of Accountancy, Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences)
12. Ms G. Steenkamp (School of Accountancy, Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences)
13. Prof. S.C. van Schalkwyk (Centre for Health Professions Education, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences)

The Centre for Teaching and Learning would like to congratulate these academics on their achievement and acknowledge their passion for and continuous striving towards teaching excellence.

The awards will be handed out at a ceremony on 28 November at 18:00 at STIAS.

Two Maties Parasport stalwarts, Ilse Hayes and Dyan Buis, were named South Africa's sportswoman and sportsman of the year with a disability at the SA Sports Awards evening on Sunday.

Ilse, who concluded a career of 16 years with a silver medal in the 200m (T13) at the World Para Athletics Championships in July, regards this award as the cherry on the cake of a fantastic career.

“I didn't compete to win trophies or awards, but it's very special to receive this award again," she said. She's received it two times before.

“I'm grateful that I can end my career with such a highlight. I wouldn't have been able to do it on my own, though."

She thanked her husband, parents and extended family, coach Dr Suzanne Ferreira, team mates, Maties Sport, sponsors and everyone who supported her throughout the years.

Ilse was 11 when she was diagnosed with Stargardt's disease – a condition that affects the central vision and the ability to distinguish detail – in 1996. She competed in her first international athletics meet in 2001 and went from strength to strength. She won seven medals at four different Paralympic Games: bronze in the 400m in Athens (2004), gold in the long jump and silver in the 100m in Beijing (2008) as well as London (2012), and silver in the 100m and 400m in Rio.

Dyan, an honours student in the Faculty of Education and Maties Sport's 2017 Parasport sportsman of the year, said it was life-long dream of his to receive this award.

He competes in the class T38 (for competitors with cerebral palsy) and won two gold medals at the World Para Athletics Championships in July – in the 200m and 400m. Last year at the Paralympic Games in Rio, he won gold in the 400m and bronze in the long jump.

He was grateful that his hard work was recognised at national level, but described his speech as his highlight of the evening.

“I have a dream that Paralympians and Olympians will receive equal status and that the SA republic will respect and honour disabled athletes for the heroes and the stars that they are," he said on the night.

​My name is Wendy Barends and I'm part of the Tygerberg Campus Security team. Any feedback or suggestions for us? Find us in the basement of the Clinical Building, call 021 938 9507 or send a Whatsapp to 082 808 2333.

Hometown: Laingsburg

Nickname: Wendels

Favourite music genre: Anything with a beat!

Favourite reading material: Die Son

Favourite movie genre: Horror movies…

My security message for the students and staff? Always walk in groups and pay close attention to those suspects – we need you to give us accurate descriptions.

If all goes according to plan the first sculpture piece by Erhardt, a photographer, will have its first overseas incarnation in June 2018 at Michigan State University in Michigan, USA. A special edition of this work was also unveiled as gravestone for struggle veteran Ahmed Kathrada in August this year. (Erhardt himself explained the sculpture to Kathrada when he visited Stellenbosch in November 2016.)

But the first iMadiba sculpture – according to Erhardt the world's smallest museum – stands next to the SU Museum, on the Wilgenhof side. Many little museums eventually form a big one, and that is the plan: to recreate the concrete bench, exactly according to the measurements of Nelson Mandela's cell on Robben Island, on as many places across the world as possible. “It is a 'listener's corner' rather than a 'speaker's corner'," says Erhardt. “Only then the work is complete. I hope that it will help to move South Africa from a free country to a free and fair country."

Erhardt found inspiration in the aftermath of the so-called Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris in 2015 in which 12 people were killed. Instead of saying Je Suis Charlie ('I am Charlie') in solidarity, Erhardt decided on iMadiba, and rather remember this giant from South African history and follow in his footsteps.

Apart from the sculpture at the SU Museum, there are two more iMadiba prototypes in Stellenbosch: at Paul Roos Gimnasium and Jan Marais Park. Erhardt used these sculptures, together with a similar one that went up in flames at the Afrikaburn festival, as test runs to finalise the design and material used. Numbers two and three will soon be unveiled at Mthatha and Qunu in the Eastern Cape.

With support from the Nelson Mandela Foundation, Erhardt hopes to erect at least 100 more similar sculptures in 2018, the year in which Madiba's hundredth birthday is commemorated.

But the first one is at Stellenbosch University.

On the SU's involvement, Dr Leslie van Rooi, senior director for Transformation and Social Impact says: “It is good to take hands with Erhardt on this wonderful project. It is in keeping with the SU's values and offers us the opportunity to a new way of think about critical art on our campus. It is a privilege to have this work on the grounds of the SU Museum. I encourage all personnel and students to visit the iMadiba work."​

The smart water meter, developed by Prof Thinus Booysen of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Stellenbosch University, will be rolled out to a 100 schools in the Western Cape – thanks to a sponsorship by the Shoprite Group.
This initiative was launched in Cape Town at the Western Cape radio station, Cape Talk, today (8 November).

It is expected that a million liters of water could be saved a day.
The smart water meter project is being commercialised by InnovUS, SU’s technology transfer office, and incubated by the Nedbank Stellenbosch University LaunchLab, SU’s business incubator, through a spin-off company, Bridgiot (Bridge to the Internet of Things).

• Click here for the Shoprite Group media release.
• Click here for a previous article about the smart water meter.
  

Jody Lee Bell (24) has a lot on her plate: She's a full-time masters' student in the Haematology Division of Stellenbosch University's (SU) Faculty of Medicine Health Sciences, works part-time at Tygerberg Hospital's biobank and made time to enter Miss Deaf SA 2017, where she was named second princess.

Even more impressive is that she manages 8-10 hours sleep every night, without compromising on her grades or commitments. “I learned time management skills early on, because focusing on listening all day takes 80% of my energy. By eight at night my brain is exhausted and needs re-charging," she says. Therefore, she simply had to learn to be productive in the mornings and fit in all her work before bedtime.

Jody was born with profound hearing loss, but was only diagnosed at the age of one. “My mother took me to various general practitioners, ear nose and throat specialists and paediatricians, but they all thought she was just being a neurotic mother. Nobody referred her to an audiologist." It was only when her mother read an article titled “How to tell if your child is hearing impaired", with references to Tygerberg Hospital's Paedo-Audiology Unit, that she embarked on her journey with hearing loss. Her mother stood firmly by her side.

Being hearing impaired came with many academic and social challenges for Jody. “I struggled in school, especially since I was 'mainstreamed' from grade 1. My hearing wasn't that great with just hearing aids." She was fortunate to receive cochlear implants – at age 16 in the left ear and at age 18 in the right. “This changed my life and my marks increased from an average of between 40% and 50%, to matriculating with 76%. The low marks weren't due to a lack of studying, but I couldn't hear properly to be able to understand and process information.

“However, I still struggled socially since I was the only hearing impaired student in all of my schools. Peers often don't have the requisite patience with or understanding of my hearing loss. Sometimes avoidance is simply easier for them."

Jody says it was only at university where she found that people truly accepted her and didn't mind adjusting their behaviour to make sure she was included. "Universities are also better equipped to support students with disabilities, because they have disability rights units."

In order to maintain her academic standards Jody made use of extra lessons, both at school and at university, to make sure she understood the work. Despite the implants, she still struggles to hear in large venues with many people where there are many background noises and interferences. “SU's Disability Unit provided real-time captioning for my lectures, so that I could follow them on my phone or laptop while the lecturer was speaking."

Although Jody realises that she is limited in certain aspects, she doesn't allow her disability to define her. “My mother was always my strongest motivator, telling me from an early age that I could do whatever I wanted. She built up my character to be a strong person and a go-getter."

Jody finds the societal stereotype of “deaf and dumb" one of the most frustrating aspects of her disability, and says this filters through to the employment sector as well. “Just because we have a hearing loss, doesn't mean that we are not independent or that we can't contribute to the economy and the country."

Although she enjoys her field of study and working on her masters' thesis (“Long-term urine biobanking: stability of urine biomarkers at -80 degrees"), she is still weighing her options regarding future professional plans. “And I like it like that. I would like to see how my career develops and seize opportunities as they arise!"

Jody does, however, want to continue trying to make life easier for South Africans with a hearing impairment and encourages all people with disabilities to be positive in the face of adversity and to accept themselves. “It's up to you to decide how to react and what you do with your circumstances."

Caption: FMHS masters' student, Jody Bell, was named second princess at the Miss Deaf SA beauty pageant.

Broadening student access and success, enhancing research excellence, accelerating transformation of the staff body and ensuring relevance of the curriculum.

These are the four core elements Prof Ingrid Woolard, newly appointed dean of the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences at Stellenbosch University (SU), has identified as key to the continued success of the faculty.

Woolard, who is currently serving as Dean of the Faculty of Commerce and Professor of Economics at the University of Cape Town, will succeed Prof Stan du Plessis, who was appointed Chief Operating Officer (designate) of SU earlier this year.

She will be the first woman to lead the faculty as dean.

“I’m looking forward to the challenge of leading SU’s largest faculty. The Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences is renowned for its student-centric approach and excellent results and I’m excited to be joining such a committed team.”

The SU Rector and Vice-Chancellor, Prof Wim de Villiers, welcomed Woolard’s appointment: “We are delighted that she will be joining Stellenbosch University as Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Management Sciences, our largest faculty. She is an internationally recognised and respected academic and will bring further management experience to the University. She will add significantly to our future focus as we embark on our second century as a leading public university in South Africa,” he said.

Expanding on the four core elements Woolard identified, she said:

“We need to push harder on improving access and the provision of enhanced financial and learning support for students from poor and marginalised communities. And once a student is admitted, we have a responsibility to provide an enabling environment for student success. The university cannot be a revolving door.”

She identified an early warning system that flags students that are at risk as early as possible as a critical part of this strategy.

She would also like to foster a culture of research excellence in the Faculty

“Research ‘superstars’ need to be acknowledged and rewarded in a way which inspires other colleagues. Academic staff who have not been particularly research active in the past need to be encouraged to do so through the provision of sympathetic research mentors who can build up their confidence and help them address obstacles.

“In addition, being more strategic about post-graduate supervision, i.e. moving closer to the ‘Science model’ of having students work on a set of topics/themes that have been selected by the research group (rather than on disparate topics selected by individual students) would assist in building the reputation of the research group and reduce the supervision burden.”

Woolard’s own areas of research interests include the measurement of poverty and inequality, unemployment, social protection and tax policy.

She feels strongly about the transformation of the staff body and implemented a number of successful strategies at UCT, including organising regular meetings with black academic staff as a means of explicitly privileging the voices of this group, creating the position Deputy Dean: Transformation and announcing that all academic posts would be initially advertised using a targeted equity statement.

“We need to increase the number of black, particularly Black African South African, staff. We need to accelerate the transformation process through aggressive recruitment strategies and addressing the issues of an unwelcoming institutional culture,” she explained.

In terms of ensuring the relevance of the curriculum, Woolard believes the Faculty needs to increase the inclusion of the work of African scholars into the curriculum while ensuring that it continues to meet the demands of the professional bodies as well as the needs of the public sector.

Woolard will join SU on 1 May 2018.

​

Fungus gnats are serious pests in South Africa's undercover farming, often harming production of various crops. The larvae of fungus gnats are soil-dwelling and, if uncontrolled, can chew through a plant's underground root system and severely harm the plant's ability to grow. Currently, the most common way that growers control fungus gnat populations is by spraying chemical insecticides, which can be harmful to the environment and human health. Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) are tiny soil-dwelling worm-like organisms which attack and kill insects. EPNs are found naturally in the soil and are not known to harm humans. In a recently completed MSc study, it was found that local EPNs which are found naturally in the soil of the Western Cape, may be very effective at killing fungus gnats. Therefore, EPNs might prove to be a powerful alternative to chemical insecticides by killing the pest insects without harming humans or the environment.

Though fungus gnats naturally feed on fungi and organic matter, there exist a few species that are specialised pests of living plants. The most harmful fungus gnats in South Africa are believed to have been introduced from the Northern hemisphere. Some of the crops affected so far include mushrooms, greenhouse-grown cucumbers, tomatoes, chrysanthemums, blueberries, vegetables, herbs and tree nursery beds. The effects of the fungus gnats on these crops include direct physical damage on the crops' root system through their larval feeding. Consequently, the symptoms presented by the affected crop will resemble those of a plant deprived of a healthy root system. Since fungus gnats naturally feed on fungi, they are also responsible for dispersing fungal pathogens, and other soil borne pathogens, when they move from one plant to the other. The adults, though physically harmless, are quite a nuisance to farm workers, and also disperse fungal spores.

The control of fungus gnats has been dominated by the use of chemical insecticides which unfortunately pose risks to farm workers' health and of fungus gnats-resistance development. Furthermore, the cryptic habitats of the fungus gnats make control through the use of chemicals difficult. Considering such hindrances, as well as the increased consumer demand for chemical free products, alternative management practices such as physical, cultural and biocontrol methods, are being sought after. Such management practices are ideal, since fungus gnats attack crops where the application of chemicals is relatively inappropriate. This is the case for crops such as mushrooms and vegetables that have short life cycles, and for which the application of chemicals is restricted only up to a certain growth stage. Fungus gnats are also pests of houseplants, which are found in very close proximity with human beings, and where application of chemicals is undesirable.

Biocontrol for fungus gnats has been achieved through the use of biocontrol agents such as EPNs, predatory mites, rove beetles and soil bacterium. Worldwide, control using EPNs has been dominated by use of the EPN, Steinernema feltiae, which has also been adopted by some South African producers. It is important to note that S. feltiae is an alien EPN species that has, to-date, not been isolated from South Africa. Thus the effects of this EPN on South Africa's biodiversity are still unknown and the importation of this species is illegal. More still, S. feltiae has been determined to be less adapted to the environmental conditions of high temperatures that prevail in South Africa's undercover production.

Ms. Agil Katumanyane, who recently completed an MSc, focussed on determining the potential for using local EPNs to control fungus gnats in undercover farms in South Africa. The project was carried out in the Department of Conservation Ecology and Entomology and was supervised by the nematologists Prof. Antoinette P. Malan and Dr Tiarin Ferreira. Funding was provided by NemaBio (Pty) Ltd. and the Technology and Human Resources for Industry Programme (THRIP: TP14062571871).

Laboratory bioassays and field trials were performed on the larvae of the fungus gnats. Field trials were performed in a commercial cucumber farm based in Paarl, Western Cape Province. The local EPNs that were tested, were found to positively control the fungus gnats both during the laboratory and field trials. Another ongoing study by the PhD student, Nicholas Kagimu, is focussed on formulating the EPNs into a marketable product. We hope that once these local EPNs are formulated, they will be availed to producers for use, at an affordable price. This will provide a more sustainable approach to controlling the fungus gnats, as well as help prevent the need to import foreign nematodes, whose effect on South Africa's biodiversity, is still unknown.

On 24 November, SU will not only launch the ACS but also celebrate African University Day, that took place on 12 November. Celebrations will include an African University Day dialogue with Prof Jonathan Jansen, distinguished professor in the Faculty of Education at SU, who will deliver a keynote address. Jansen is also the former vice-chancellor and rector of the University of the Free State. He will lead discussions about higher education and scholarship on the continent.

SU has been viewing African Higher Education as an important sector collaborating with the Association of African Universities (AAU) and African Universities in developing Higher Education in Africa.

The University's mission is to develop a framework for SU's African footprint beyond South African borders, inter alia by expanding scholarship development initiatives across the continent through the utilisation of existing, or the establishment of new, partnerships, has been a main strategic focus point, said Prof Hester Klopper, Vice-Rector: Strategy and Internationalisation.

African University Day has been celebrated by higher education institutions since 2005. The day puts African Higher Education in the spotlight, while it gives an opportunity to reflect on progress, challenges and opportunities faced by this sector.

SU's involvement with initiatives to promote African higher education:

• The ACS that will be formally launched next week was established with the purpose of increasing SU's academic footprint in Africa. Prof Sarah Howie was appointed as Director for ACS on 1 July 2017. The ACS houses the African Doctoral Academy (ADA), initiates the development of a curriculum for scholarship development interventions and oversees its delivery through the ADA and joint doctoral schools. New initiatives include establishing a research unit focusing on the Internationalisation of Higher Education and mechanisms for promoting African scholarship. More ICT based interventions will also be developed to present capacity building programmes for young students outside of South Africa.

• SU International's Centre for Collaboration in Africa (CCA) was established in 2016 to foster SU's African interests at an institutional level. 400+ registered active collaborative projects, in more than 42 African countries with more than 600 African collaborators explain the extent of the collaboration. The figure depicts the reported collaborative projects of SU staff with staff / universities / departments / research centres or organisations and individuals on the continent. The five countries with the most projects are: Kenya, Botswana, Uganda, Namibia and Nigeria with more than 300 projects between them.

SU sustains institutional has 18 institutional bilateral partnerships and six departmental agreements with 24 higher education institutions (HEIs) in Africa. For students and staff, mobility grants provide access to exchange programmes with these institutions.

•            African Doctoral Academy (ADA)

Since its establishment in 2009, the ADA has grown significantly and since 2012, 2 143 delegates have attended 141 workshops at the Summer and Winter Schools of whom 32% are from other African countries.

During the reporting period, the ADA presented two doctoral schools with 406 participants coming from a diverse disciplinary background with the largest groups being from AgriSciences (19%), Economic and Management Sciences (16%) and Arts and Social Sciences (29%):

ADA Summer School (January 2017): 218 participants with 16 presenters (including four presenters from KU Leuven as an extension of the preferential partnership between SU and KU Leuven).

ADA Winter School (July 2017): 188 participants with 18 presenters of whom 8 came from Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and the USA.

•            Africa Collaboration Grants (ACG)

The Africa Collaboration Grants (ACG) provides seed funding for full-time SU staff to establish or strengthen academic collaboration with one or more partners based at institutions elsewhere on the continent. Since 2010, there have been 100+ African Collaboration Grants awarded.

•            SU Students from African Countries

Currently 58% of international students at SU come from 42 African countries.  Of the more than 2 500 students from Africa, the five largest groups are from Namibia, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Zambia and Lesotho. It is evident that SU is an attractive destination for students from the rest of the continent, especially with regard to postgraduate studies.

•            African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA)

ARUA was launched in 2015 with the purpose of boosting continental research capacities and the need to develop first-class Higher Education for postgraduate training to address complex economic, social and developmental problems. There are 16 partner universities on the continent in this alliance.  The partnering universities are:

ARUA Partner Universities:

1. University of Lagos, Nigeria

2. University of Ibadan, Nigeria

3. Obafemi Awolowo University lle-Ife, Nigeria

4. University of Ghana, Ghana

5. University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

6. University of Nairobi, Kenya

7. University of Cape Town, South Africa

8. University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa

9. University of Rwanda

10. University Cheikh Anta Diop, Senegal

11. Makerere University, Uganda

12. University of Stellenbosch, South Africa

13. University of Pretoria, South Africa

14. Rhodes University, South Africa

15. University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa

16. Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia

•            Bilateral and Multilateral African partnerships

The multilateral African partnerships\networks that exist with their focus areas are:

1.       TRECCAfrica I and II

(EU Intra-ACP)   Climate Change, Agriculture, Science, Food Science, Engineering and Governance. There are 65 mobility flows from the TRECCA 1. SU is coordinating the consortium.

2.       SHARE

(EU Intra-ACP)   Fisheries, Aquaculture, Agro-meteorology, Risk Management, Agricultural and Rural Innovation, and Plant Breeding.

3.       PAFROID

(EU Intra-ACP)   Engineering, AgriSciences.

Predominantly a Francophone network.

4.       AFIMEGQ

(EU Intra-ACP)   Food Security, Public Health, Engineering, Environmental Science and Biotechnology.

5.       P4HPT

(EU Intra-ACP)   Health Sciences, Public Health, Nursing, Medical Microbiology, Pathology and Dental Surgery.

6.       PANGeA

(Hosted in Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences)        The PANGeA network strives to develop research capacity. Members participate in exchange schemes, workshops and training seminars alternating between the seven partner campuses, joint projects and PhD supervision in the arts, humanities and social sciences.

7.       PERIPERI-U

(Secretariat in RADAR)   Periperi-U is a partnership of African universities spanning across the continent and is committed to building local disaster risk reduction related capacity. This network of 11 African HEIs, offer short courses and degree programmes in seven languages, thereby reaching DRR students and practitioners.

8.       RUFORUM

(Secretariat in Uganda)  This consortium with a focus on Agricultural Sciences, consists of 66 African partner universities operating within 26 countries. It has a mandate to oversee graduate training and networks of specialisation in the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), as well as to support the contribution and wellbeing of small scale farmers and economic development of countries throughout the sub-Saharan Africa region.

9.       AU/NEPAD SANWATCE

(Secretariat hosted by CCA within SU International)         The AU/NEPAD SANWATCE, a network of 11 partner institutions in Southern Africa and 5 in Western Africa, brings together institutions across Africa, who conduct high-end scientific research on water and related sectors, in order to achieve impact. It is mandated by the African Ministers of Water (AMCOW) and the African Ministers of Science and Technology (AMCOST) and is a member of the International Waters Network, with secretariat hosted by the University of British Columbia (UBC), Canada.

​