Minister Naledi Pandor announces 42 additional research chairs for women researchers
2 September 2015
The Minister of Science and Technology, Naledi Pandor today announced 42 additional research chairs at various higher education institutions to assist South Africa's transformation into a knowledge economy, boosting its international competitiveness and improving people's quality of life.
The new research chairs, awarded to local women researchers, has increased the total number of chairs under the South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI) to 197, strengthening the ability of the country's universities to produce good postgraduate students and high-quality research and innovation outputs.
Established in 2006 by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and managed by the National Research Foundation (NRF), SARChI is a government human capital development intervention to strengthen and improve the scientific research and innovation capacity of South African public universities.
SARChI's key objectives are to attract established researchers from abroad and industry to South African higher education institutions, and to retain experts already in the system. Research chairs are awarded in diverse disciplines in the natural sciences, engineering, humanities and social sciences in response to government priorities.