Page 110 - University of Pretoria RESEARCH REVIEW 2016

NEW DEVELOPMENTS
Each year brings new developments and a realignment of the University of Pretoria’s research strategy and areas of research strength with renewed and urgent demands in ever-changing local and global contexts.
In 2016, there were noteworthy research achievements, as are amply illustrated in this Review. Two areas of new developments are highlighted in this closing section: the new research entities established in 2016; and an intensified focus on research in and for Africa.
New research entities
In the Faculty of Health Sciences, two new research centres were established: The Centre for Viral Zoonoses; and the Research Centre for Maternal, Fetal, Newborn and Child Health Care. The UP Centre for Sustainable Malaria Control, also in the Health Sciences, became a research institute − the UP Institute for Sustainable Malaria Control (UP ISMC) − given its expanded scope of work, and collaborative regional and global partnerships.
Two further research institutes were established, each related to pressing contemporary issues, the first to lifestyle and wellbeing, and the second to a major economic focus in Africa: mineral resources and the resilience of the mining industry. The Institute for Sport, Exercise Medicine and Lifestyle Research was established in the
Faculty of Health Sciences; and the Mining Resilience Institute in the Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology.
Research in and for Africa
Central to the University of Pretoria’s vision and values is research that is a ‘public good’, and nowhere is this more visible than in our focus on Africa, and the ‘grand challenges’ that face developing regions and the world. It is in these contexts, in particular, that the critical needs for transdisciplinary, internationalisation and social responsibility are increasingly directing the development and impact of research and the role of universities globally (Slippers et al. 2014).
The Future Africa campus at the UP Experimental Farm is under construction, with a sod-turning event held in May 2016. The Future Africa programme is already firmly in place where Africa’s leading scientists and scholars from a broad range of disciplines come together to leverage the benefits of new approaches to team research, and a new transdisciplinary and convergence science paradigm, in tackling some of the complex issues facing both Africa and the global community.
In 2016, the focus was on the Africa Science Leadership Programme (ASLP) and the Tuks Young Research Leader Programme (TYRLP). The scope of Future Africa will be expanded, with well- developed plans in place to establish an institute focused on developing a new generation of transformation-minded science leaders in Africa, and actively to build networks between science leaders across Africa and the rest of the world.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The production of the University of Pretoria’s annual Research Review is one of the important projects of the Department of Research and Innovation, and it is my pleasure to extend our sincere gratitude to all who have contributed to this 2016 Review:
• The researchers who contributed their work by providing stories, readings and photographs.
• The group of expert researchers who served as critical readers: Professors Don Cowan, Robin
Crewe, Jenny Hoobler, Michael Pepper and Bernard Slippers.
• Colleagues in the Department of Research and Innovation for preparing the detail on UP’s research
publications in 2016, and Bhaviksha Ramouthar for her assistance in cataloguing the images
received.
• Our colleagues in UP Libraries, UP Arts and UP Museums, Institutional Planning, Information
Technology, and University Relations.
The Research Review 2016 is published in print and e-versions.
Please visit http://www.up.ac.za/research-innovation for the electronic searchable copy of the Review, and the research outputs of 2016, linked to UPSpace, the online open-source repository of the University of Pretoria.
Dr Nthabiseng Taole
Director: Department of Research and Innovation
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